Knocking on the door, Odelia loudly asked “Lord Eyes, are you awake yet? May I come in?” Though after not getting an answer after a few moments, Odelia knocked again and entered the room. “Pardon the intrusion, Lord Eyes, but you asked me to wake you up early for...training.” When she entered the room, she found that it was completely empty. “Did I get the room wrong?” Odelia questioned herself, quickly searching the other rooms on the 1st floor. “Could he have already gone down to train?” She headed back down herself after not finding Eyes anywhere on the 1st floor.

  Seeing Verana already cooking breakfast in the kitchen, Odelia said “Good morning, Verana. You wouldn’t have happened to see Lord Eyes this morning, would you?”

  “Good morning to you too, Odelia.” Verana greeted her back, “And no I haven’t; though shouldn’t he be in a room on the 1st floor?”

  “I thought so too, but I couldn’t find him in any of the rooms.” Odelia relayed, slightly worried as it was already the third time Eyes has disappeared on her.

  “I see…” Verana then recalled “Well he did come back downstairs after you showed him where he could rest last night—he offered to help me with the dishes. I tried my best to refuse, but he insisted on thanking me somehow for all the delicious food the last few days.” She smiled at the fond memory and told Odelia, “What an honour it’ll be to serve such a humbly benevolent King in the future.”

  “I agree, but after he helped you with the dishes, did he go back upstairs?” Odelia inqured.

  “No, no he didn’t.” Remembering, “He actually said he would train for a few more hours and then head back up after he was tired.”

  “If you didn’t see him this morning, he must’ve fallen asleep in the Training Chamber.” Odelia figured.

  “Lord Eyes must be already pushing himself too hard.” Verana sighed at the thought. “I know you said it was for him to announce himself as the Heir, but why challenge him to accomplish such an impossible task?”

  Odelia grinned mischievously, “The Kingdom knowing of Lord Eyes’ existence, or Lord Eyes taking an impossible leap closer to becoming a Trinity Archer—it’s a win-win for our House and the Kingdom either way, is it not?”

  “In a sense, but still, don’t you think it's a little too impossible of a challenge? Unfair to Lord Eyes perhaps?” Reminding Odelia, “Even Aelthar and Amariina agreed when they heard the challenge last night.”

  “Hmph!” Odelia scoffed, telling Verana “I don’t believe Lord Eyes would agree with that statement, as I truly believe he thinks he can accomplish it. And with the incredible progress I saw he’s already made, I might’ve been inclined to actually believe him if he had more than two weeks until month’s end.”

  “I just hope Lord Eyes doesn’t get too discouraged when he fails at the end of the month.” Verana stated, finishing preparing a tray of breakfast for Eyes. “Anyway, from your experience, how long will it really take our Lord to become a Trinity Archer?”

  “To be completely honest, Verana, I do not know.” Odelia told her honestly, “Lord Eyes is already skies above anyone I’ve taught or experienced before—greater than Zebey and I, greater than Master, and possibly even greater than the Great King Ven’Thyl himself.”

  Verana was stunned in disbelief after hearing such high praise from Odelia, but that disbelief quickly turned into delight—a delight that Eyes would be an impossibly great king someday. She then handed the tray full of breakfast to Odelia and went back cooking for the rest of the House with an even brighter mood on her face.

  When Odelia finally arrived at the door leading to the Training Chamber, she suddenly heard a loud yell coming from the other side and quickly opened to find out what happened.

  ***

  “Yeahhhhh!” I yelled out, heavily panting and falling to the ground from the exhaustion, “Fuck...that was way harder than I thought it was going to be…How long did that take me?” I watched my Mana slowly recover from 0 as I heard the door on the platform unexpectedly slam wide open.

  I reactively reverted my Eye Of An Elder Cyclops and saw Odelia rushing through the door, “Are you alright, Lord Eyes! What was that yell!” though oddly she carried a tray of food in her hands.

  “Wait, is that breakfast? Does that mean it took me all night to learn one Skill? Oh, that doesn’t sit well with me at all.” Thinking, “If I assume the end of the month at the earliest is a week away, I need to really pick up the pace if I’m going to complete the Quest in time.” I then shouted to Odelia, “Everything’s fine! But I’m so ready to move on!”

  Odelia looked surprised as I watched her create a rope made of mana—attached to the platform—and used it to carefully slide down to the ground. “I never took you for a quitter, my Lord, but you cannot just give up after not even a single full day of training yet.” She completely misunderstood what I meant while she placed the food onto a small table she quickly manifested with her mana.

  “No, I’m not a quitter. What I meant was—”

  “Good! And I know you confidently said you understood what I explained and showed you yesterday, but you should know it is hard for everyone to grasp the idea of a new Skill on their first day; especially one as advanced as Wield Mana.” I tried to clear up the misunderstanding, but Odelia continued lecturing me, “Wield Mana takes years of learning to feel and control the rough flow of mana within one's self, as one cannot see or imagine it perfectly in the beginning. But do not be discouraged, my Lord, keep trying and I am sure you will make great progress someday.” After she finished talking, I bursted out into laughter. “What? What is so funny?” Odelia asked, confused about what I was laughing at.

  I settled down but couldn’t help smugly grinning at her, “You hurt me, Odelia. How could you ever underestimate me like that? But if there’s one thing you should learn about me, it’s that when it comes to archery, there’s nothing I can’t do.” Imagining the image of a simple short bow, I could feel the little bit of mana I recovered slowly begin to move through my body and into my left hand; and drawing it out, that very image of a simple short bow began to form exactly fitting into my hand. “I don’t know about you, but I think I’m more than ready to move on to the next Skill.” My Mana drained back to 0 and caused the short bow to dissipate into nothing.

  “Th-That...is impossible…” Odelia was left almost speechless.

  “Well I only just learned it before you got here, so it was actually pretty hard, but I wouldn’t say impossible.” Thinking, “Although I would’ve failed again if I didn’t make that sudden breakthrough an hour ago.”

  “But...but...how can that be?” Odelia questioned, still in shock.

  “I don't know, a whole lot of hard work?" I shrugged off her shock, "But it does seem like it took me all night if that makes it any better?” picking up and eating a slice of a delicious purple fruit from the breakfast tray.

  “It does not, my Lord.” And while Odelia tried to come to terms with the possibility, I hungrily ate my breakfast and checked up in the Top 10 Chat.

  “Aww, man. How could they let our Party fall apart like that? And why are they both missing?” I then moved on to yesterday's most recent messages.

  “Uh oh, that’s not because of me, is it? I’m pretty sure all the ones I killed should be behind my barrier, right Goblex?” Wondering if Goblex actually disposed of all the bodies properly.

  “I’m not sure how many Healer Class Players actually have the Cleanse Skill, but I know it’ll be a problem if a bunch of Players get infected and bring the virus into Asheton without a cure.” Thinking “I really don’t want that to happen, there’s good people there.”

  Deciding to prepare some countermeasures, I first tried contacting Mako, but after she didn’t reply, I figured she was busy and left her a warning and some instructions. Then knowing Global had the biggest voice and influence in her World Chat, I contacted her next and informed her on the potential situation.

  “What a pain. Why does she have to be so information hungry? But maybe I should start lying to her?” Though I quickly squashed the idea, “Nah, knowing the type of person she is, she’d probably find out somehow and end up being an unavoidable problem in the future, and that doesn’t sound like something I wanna deal with.”

  “She’s too smart and too curious for her own good, but I guess it was only a matter of time until someone found out.” I thought to myself, responding to her.

  I then revealed to Global that the Top 10 in the Tutorial were actually all awarded before we arrived in the Waiting Hub, and that we were all presented with a completely Unique Subclass to choose from.

  ***

  Somewhere in a corridor full of cages underneath the capital city of Leon…

  “So, what do you think? She’ll go for a lot, right?” A scarred man hoped, expecting to get a lot for a young elven girl.

  “Looks like you roughed her up a bit, but nothing a little healing won’t fix.” A clean-shaven man noted, writing something down in his ledger.

  “Yeah, she put up a pretty good fight, but after I took down her strange pink pet, she was much easier to deal with.” The scarred man proudly stated.

  “A pink pet?” The clean-shaven man questioned with interest.

  “Yeah, I wanted to capture it too, but it suddenly disappeared. So I think it was actually just some type of summoned familiar.” The scarred man figured.

  “Oh well, but back to the girl.” The clean-shaven man opened the cage door and entered where an unconscious, dirtied, bruised, and chained up Dream lay. “Now that I’m getting a closer look at her, she’s really young. Good catch!” The scarred man smiled after hearing a good start to the appraisal.

  “I’m not sure about the 3 tattoos I see, as most buyers tend to avoid already damaged or marked merchandise, but other than that, I think she’ll be at least a B-Grade slave.” The clean-shaven man estimated, writing that down in his ledger. “Now, why don’t we see what else she’s hiding under those clothes...” Though just before the clean-shaven man could even lay a single finger on Dream, a sudden bolt of lightning struck him right in the back and caused him to scream out in pain, “Gaahhhh...!”

  The scarred man immediately drew his blades, “Who's there?!” but when he turned around, there was no one there.

  “Hey you fucking slave trading pieces of shit! Over here!” The voice came from the cage right across Dream’s.

  “What the hell? Did someone bring in a Mage without locking them up with Mage Shackles?” The scarred man questioned, dodging another sudden bolt of lightning from the opposite cage.

  “Maybe you fucking slave traders are all just dumbass pieces of shit!” As yet another bolt of lightning was sent flying out of the cage.

  Recovering from the bolt of lightning, the clean-shaven man angrily came stomping to the other locked up slave, “If you were smart, boy, you would’ve kept being a Mage secret! You might’ve even found a way to eventually escape, but now—Gaahhhh...!” He screamed again, as a point blank bolt of lightning struck him through the bars of the cage.

  Faust loudly laughed, “Hahaha...! Like I said, dumbass pieces of shit! You want some too, ugly?” The two men then nodded to each other and backed away from the cage. “Awww, that’s it? The big bad slave traders already had enough?” They didn’t respond and just left elsewhere. However after a few moments passed, Faust suddenly heard many voices and footsteps of other people, and turning the corner of the corridor was about 20 armed men angrily approaching his cage.

  “Oh, shit! Maybe I provoked them too much!” Faust thought to himself, seeing all the men ready beat him inside his cage. “These pieces of shit are lucky I came here for a reason and can't kill them just yet. And I don't know how Dream ended up here too, but at least I got all their attention off her." Faust then proceeded to willingly accept their ruthless beating of him—bringing him to the brink of death, restraining him with new Mage Shackles, and leaving him to rot until more later beatings.