Uncle Dorthna’s spell was simple. Melmarc didn’t feel anything in the beginning, just the simple poking and prodding as his uncle worked his way up his body up to a very painful spot on his head that Melmarc had not even been aware of.

  “That’s going to be a heavy one,” his uncle muttered under his breath when Melmarc groaned from being poked in the head.

  “A heavy one?” Melmarc asked. “Why do I get the feeling that what you’re about to do is going to hurt?”

  Uncle Dorthna looked down at him. “Because healing hurts.”

  That couldn’t be right. Melmarc knew for a near fact that magical healing did in fact not hurt. In fact, the types of healing that actually hurt were in the minorities. The great minorities. Probably the one percent, maybe less.

  Nobody wanted a healer that would put them through pain while healing them in a battle situation. It was bad for business.

  So he told his uncle just as much. “Healing spells don’t hurt.”

  “Not the ones that do a proper job.” Uncle Dorthna moved down from his head and poked a rib. “That’s five broken ribs one hairline fracture in your left leg and…” he looked up and Melmarc’s terror must have been obvious because he said, “You don’t need to know the details, just that you’ll be fine and good in a matter of time.”

  Melmarc couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “And you did this to me?” It wasn’t an accusation, just a repetition of his incredulity.

  “Actually,” his uncle clarified. “A wall did this to you.”

  Melmarc cocked a brow, feeling the pain in his head.

  “You went through one of the living room walls,” his uncle said.

  Melmarc could definitely see how going through a wall could’ve done this to a normal person.

  “And I thought I was now strong enough to survive walls,” he muttered under his breath.

  Apart from the strength-based classes, he knew of classes that became strong enough by default to survive going through walls after some growth. Usually, though, they were A-ranks and S-ranks.

  “It wasn’t a normal wall.” Uncle Dorthna held two hands over Melmarc’s foot. “It was a wall in your house.”

  “And?”

  “There are a lot of enchantments and spells on it to make it strong.” His uncle shrugged just before a spell appeared between his hands and Melmarc’s foot. “I’m just glad things weren’t worse after you went through it.”

  Melmarc stared at the spell circle. Most of the spells he knew from those with the [Mage] classes were usually circles with geometric signs within the circles. As for healing done by those with the [Healer] class, there were no symbols or anything of the like, just a soothing sensation or some emanation of colors.

  Uncle Dorthna’s, however, didn’t look like a normal spell. There was the circle that came with most spells but that was where the similarities ended. For one, as a healing spell, the circle was not green where others were. It was a deep golden color, almost like the color of the sun. Secondly, the circle had no geometric signs hidden within it. Just words and scribbles and sigils that Melmarc could not read. In fact, looking at it tried to give him a headache.

  Personally, it looked more like an advanced enchantment.

  Melmarc allowed his head to fall back and looked at the ceiling. “Aren’t enchantments meant to be written on something?” he muttered, shaking off the drowsy feeling that looking at the spell had elicited.

  “This is not an enchantment,” his uncle answered absently. “This is a spell.”

  “Looks like an enchantment.”

  “I know.” His uncle sucked in a deep breath. “Now you’re going to feel the…”

  The sudden silence of his uncle drew Melmarc’s attention and he pulled his head up to look at his uncle. Uncle Dorthna was still squatted in front of his leg, looking thoughtful.

  “You know what?” he said after a moment. “No one’s home but let’s do something about the potential outcome.”

  To Melmarc’s greatest surprise, his uncle got up and moved to the wardrobe in the room. Melmarc’s jaw dropped. The spell was still hovering over his leg. He’d never heard of a spell being abandoned by its caster and still being active while its caster went ahead to do something else.

  “How strong are you, exactly?” he found himself asking as his uncle rummaged through his wardrobe.

  “I am merely a shadow of myself.” He pulled out a shirt, rolled it up, checked its thickness, then tossed it back inside. “But stronger than anyone on your world.”

  He went back to looking through the wardrobe.

  “Did you lose your powers?” Melmarc asked.

  Uncle Dorthna pulled out another shirt and rolled it up tighter. “In a manner of speaking. Someone did something with the help of some people that left me in a certain state.” He turned and faced Melmarc with a small vest in his hands. “That state has left me as a shadow of myself.”

  “Why doesn’t my skill work on you?”

  Melmarc knew that his uncle was very much aware of what skill he was talking about. [Knowledge is Power] couldn’t even give him his uncle’s name.

  His uncle walked up to him, rolling the vest up into a bundle. He stopped in front of him. “I’ll answer this question, then you’ve got two more before I put this in your mouth. Deal?”

  The rolled up vest was suddenly the most terrifying thing in the room and Melmarc couldn’t take his eyes off it. “Yes,” he answered with a nod.

  “Good.” Uncle Dorthna rolled the vest up some more, made it smaller and thicker. “Your skill doesn’t work on me because I’m too powerful.”

  “Even as a shadow of yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  Melmarc paused, realized what had just happened and hurriedly asked. “Two independent questions not chain questions, right?”

  His uncle laughed. “You must really be out of it if you made that mistake. That’s more Ark than you.”

  It was. It also made Melmarc realize that he had no idea where his older brother was. He opened his mouth, paused, frowned.

  “I want to ask where Ark is,” he said slowly, cautious not to ask a question. “But I’m worried it will count as a question.”

  Uncle Dorthna turned away abruptly and started laughing. Melmarc waited patiently as his uncle laughed some more with enough vigor to make Spitfire come running into the room.

  After a while, when the laughter had died out, his uncle turned to him with a smile. “You do know that you get two questions before I heal you, right? Not two questions and none at all.”

  Melmarc paused. “Oh.”

  “Good.” His uncle wrapped the bundled up vest tighter. “Now ask your two independent questions so we can do this.”

  “What’s your class?” That one was quick to come, courtesy of the spell still hovering over his foot without the caster’s attention. It was really freaky.

  Uncle Dorthna paused in thought, looked up to the ceiling as if conjuring up a lie then changing his mind.

  In the end, he said. “If your interface can see it, you will see [Mage].”

  “But you’re not a [Mage].”

  “I am not.” His uncle raised a hand and moved it slowly through the air. He frowned at the end of the action. “We’re really running out of time.”

  “So, why [Mage]?”

  “Because it is what the lesser version of my class should be or maybe I should say is.”

  “Lesser version?” Melmarc was perplexed. “Classes can be upgraded?”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh… So, if you’re not a [Mage], what are you?”

  For a moment his uncle looked sad. The awareness died from his eyes as his body seemed to sag. At Melmarc’s feet, the spell flickered almost imperceptibly.

  “You get to a point in life where you stop caring about classes and start paying attention to designations.” Uncle Dorthna blinked, but he still looked as if he was speaking from memory, pulling things from times half-remembered. “[Creators], [Envoys], [Ruiners], [Voids].” He shook his head. “Far too many designations in far too vast an existence.” He looked at Melmarc now. “But I digress. What my class is does not matter. What matters is that I am like you, your parents, your brother. The man that walks past the house and doesn’t seem to see it.”

  “Human?” Melmarc said. He would be lying if a part of him had not considered his uncle to be something other than human since coming back home from the portal.

  Uncle Dorthna nodded. “Yes, Mel. Human. I am human. And that is all that matters.”

  “Where is Ar—”

  His uncle shoved the rolled up vest in his mouth, immediately silencing him.

  “Sorry, kiddo,” he said. “But I know you. As obedient as you are, if I give you the time, you’ll ask all the questions in the world and I won’t get to heal your leg in time.”

  Making sure that Melmarc’s mouth was sufficiently full with a tap against his jaw, Uncle Dorthna moved over to his leg.

  Melmarc watched the spell grow slightly brighter and his uncle said, “Brace yourself.”

  Melmarc made the mistake of wondering just how much brace he needed before he finally braced himself so the pain hit him a little too quickly.

  He bulked under the weight of the spell as he felt his foot tear in four different places. When he felt his foot come undone, he twitched and thrashed, back arching so that he bowed backwards on his bed, rising off it like someone possessed by a demon in the exorcism movies.

  Then the pain was gone and he fell back helplessly.

  That had been a lot of pain for a single foot.

  Dorthna patted his foot generously and moved on from it. “You’re doing good, kiddo.” He poked Melmarc’s leg and Melmarc winced. “Now time for your leg.” Another spell circle appeared over his leg. This one looked slightly different, but Melmarc couldn’t quite make out just how different. “Brace for impact.”

  Refusing to make the earlier mistake, Melmarc did not wonder. He simply braced for all the good it did him.

  When he felt his leg come undone, he heard his voice muffled by the vest in his mouth as it did its job of keeping him quiet. Without an outlet of escape in the form of sound, his pain left him in the form of a drop of tears rolling down the side of his face from his right eye.

  Where his foot had been torn in three different places, Melmarc lost count of how many places his leg had been torn in. Everything felt as if his uncle had put his leg through a shredder and just let things happen to it.

  Then, in only a matter of time, just as it had been with his foot, the pain was gone. Again, his uncle gave his leg a generous pat before moving over to the second leg.

  The process repeated itself until Melmarc found himself praying, pleading, and begging for help. Tears streamed down his face and his uncle only looked at him once through the entire ordeal. As he moved from his second leg to his torso to his arms.

  Uncle Dorthna came and settled, sitting on the bed just next to Melmarc’s head. He looked apologetic.

  “Sorry, kid,” he said. “Proper healing is never easy to handle.”

  Melmarc didn’t think that proper healing was meant to hurt. He’d never had any injury that had hurt while it healed normally before, so he didn’t think it was supposed to when it healed magically.

  With the vest still in his mouth, he could not give his uncle a piece of his mind on the subject.

  “I’m about to deal with the injury on your head,” Uncle Dorthna said. “It’s going to hurt. You’ll probably pass out for a moment.”

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

  This was not healing. Melmarc refused to believe it. Why would healing make him pass out.

  “Normally, I could add something to the spell to deal with the pain,” Uncle Dorthna continued. “But since you’ve unlocked your Pain concept, I would be doing you a disfavor by adding that. Also, I really couldn’t add it if I wanted to. It’s kind of…” his uncle shook his head. “Never mind.” He leaned in and looked into Melmarc’s wide and skittish eyes. “I’m really sorry for the pain. But remember this; the pain is good; the pain is your friend.”

  Pain is good, Melmarc thought as Dorthna’s hands came to settle over his head. Pain is my friend.

  When the spell circle appeared over his head, right in his face, fresh memories of the pain that he had just gone through came to life and he closed his eyes from the spell.

  Pain is good. Pain is my friend.

  When the spell took effect, Melmarc learned two things.

  Pains was not good.

  Pain was not his friend.

  When the pain came, it poured. It flooded his mind like a thousand pictures flashing through a screen. At one point everything stopped. There was nothingness. Then the light returned and the pain came with it.

  Then it was gone.

  Melmarc peeled his eyes open and found Uncle Dorthna looking down at him with a small smile. His uncle placed a gentle hand on his head and rubbed it soothingly.

  “You did good.”

  Melmarc would’ve nodded if he had the strength to. “Everything got quiet for a while,” he said.

  “Uhuh.” His uncle nodded. “You passed out for a moment. Let’s say three seconds.” His smile widened jovially. “Very quiet three seconds. Then you came back and took the silence with you.”

  Melmarc tasted his mouth and realized that the vest was gone. He licked his lips and his eyes began darting around.

  “I took the cloth from your mouth when you fainted,” his uncle explained. “Didn’t want to risk anything.”

  When Melmarc nodded in understanding, he realized that he didn’t have any headache and he didn’t feel any pain.

  Uncle Dorthna got up from the bed and clapped his hands once.

  “Alright, then,” he declared, moving back to his bed. “As for the question you asked before we started, I sent Ark to the phone store. Told him to walk there. We’re getting you a new cell phone.”

  “What of the one I left in the precinct?” Melmarc had expected his mind to be drowsy somehow from having to go through all the pain. It was not. His mind was clear.

  His uncle shrugged. “No idea. I can say that your parents haven’t forgotten about the precinct yet, though. Once they are done with the powers that be, I’m guessing the precinct will be next. Hopefully, they don’t tear the place down and cost people their jobs.”

  Hopefully, Melmarc thought, not that he could really bring himself to care right now.

  “So, you have more questions for me,” Uncle Dorthna continued. “Before that, though, I’d suggest checking your stats. Proper healing tends to have effects on them.”

  A confused line creased Melmarc’s forehead. He’d never heard of that before. Still, he pulled up his stats.

  Stats

  [Agility 8, Balance 12, Mental 12 -- > 16, Mana 24-- > 42, Strength 14, Dexterity 7, Accuracy 6, Speed 5, Constitution 4 -- > 10]

  Melmarc’s jaw dropped, which was funny since he was lying down and not standing up. He didn’t think that gravity was pulling his jaw down. Not necessarily.

  “That’s quite the boost to your mana stats,” Uncle Dorthna whistled lightly. “I wouldn’t want to be the guy going up against you in a test of mana.”

  “What did you d—” Melmarc froze, and he looked up from his stats to his uncle.

  Uncle Dorthna looked as if he knew exactly what he had done, as if it had been intentional.

  “I didn’t show you my stats,” Melmarc said pointedly.

  “You didn’t show me your stats,” Uncle Dorthna echoed in confirmation.

  Realization dawned on Melmarc after that. “You can see my interface.”

  His uncle nodded. “As long as you can pull it up, I can see it.”

  Melmarc was feeling something, but he couldn’t quite put a name on what it was. “Can you see other people’s interfaces?”

  “If they can pull it up,” Uncle Dorthna said. “Then I can see it.”

  “How?”

  His uncle shrugged. “When you advance to a certain level of power, you just work differently.”

  Melmarc couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How many new things was he going to find out about his uncle without finding out who exactly his uncle was.

  Still, regardless of all the new things, he knew one fact to remain true. He still trusted his Uncle Dorthna.

  Tossing the new piece of information in one corner of his brain where the things he knew about Uncle Dorthna went to play, he returned his attention to the stats in front of him.

  “So, you did this to my mana?”

  “Not at all. But your constitution,” his uncle gave him a smile. “That one was courtesy of good ol’ uncle D.”

  “How did you give me six points in constitution?”

  “Well, everyone knows that constitution is just your overall physical and biological make up, right?”

  Melmarc nodded.

  “Any proper healing from any severe injury is meant to be painful,” his uncle continued. “It’s also meant to add a point or two to your constitution. You see, average and mediocre healing, like the ones you normal see around, use mana to patch you back together. What a proper healing spell does, however, is use mana to fuel your body with the necessary nutritional requirements needed to heal and then speed up your healing process by an exponential factor in an isolated area. As the saying goes, broken bones heal better… I think.”

  “How do you explain the pain? Healing isn’t supposed to be painful.”

  Uncle Dorthna snapped his finger at him. “True. But broken bones being forced to heal into a strong and useable condition hurts. It’s like healing and physical therapy all in the space of a few seconds.”

  “And the pain?”

  His uncle shrugged. “You’ve gotten the concept of pain unlocked within you, all the pain you get should not be suppressed.”

  Melmarc gulped. Did that mean his uncle was going to add pain management to his training now?

  Hoping that not bringing it up would reduce the chances of it happening, he turned them to a different topic.

  “You said you were a shadow of yourself before,” he said.

  Uncle Dorthna nodded, then shrugged his leg, pushing Spitfire aside so that it went skidding across the floor. “I did.”

  Melmarc looked at the demon and found it grumbling away from his uncle. It wasn’t hurt just annoyed, so he ignored it. “But you also said that you’re too powerful that’s why [Knowledge is Power] doesn’t work on you.”

  “I did.”

  “How strong are you?”

  “Honestly?”

  Melmarc nodded. “Honestly. I’m not looking for false humility.”

  Uncle Dorthna took a moment to make a thoughtful hum before answering. “There’s nobody alive on this planet that is as strong as I am.”

  Melmarc paused. That had been… a bit 'arrogant sounding'.

  You did ask for honesty over humility, though.

  “Even as a shadow of yourself?” he confirmed.

  Uncle Dorthna nodded. “Even as a shadow of myself.”

  “How?” Melmarc was not afraid to admit that he wanted power of that level. The kind of power that had you believing that even at a weakened state you were still stronger than everyone.

  “I see doubt,” his uncle said simply.

  Melmarc shrugged. The action told him that he now had more than enough strength to get up from the bed pain free. He did not.

  “It’s kind of hard to believe you’re that powerful even as a shadow of yourself,” he answered.

  His uncle sighed. “A weak and dying dragon will still win a fight against an ant no matter what, Mel. It’s just how life works.”

  “A weak and dying dragon,” Melmarc echoed his uncle’s words. “And an ant. Wow. That confidence. Just how?”

  “I’m not as arrogant as I sound right now,” his uncle said, chuckling. “I’m just being honest since that’s what you asked for. When you’ve lived as long as I have, these things just become inevitable.”

  “And how old are you?”

  His uncle raised a brow at that. “Hasn’t anyone told you that it’s rude to go around asking people their age?”

  Melmarc blanked. “I thought that only applied to women.”

  It was his uncle’s turn to look confused.

  “Really?” his uncle asked. “I thought it applied to everyone. Anyway, who’s the oldest person you know?”

  That was easy.

  “Grandpa,” he answered. Although he rarely got to see his grandparents. Since he was born, he’d probably seen them a maximum of three times.

  “I’m older than him,” Uncle Dorthna said easily. “Let’s do two more question then it’s my turn.”

  Melmarc was confused. “Your turn?”

  “Remember when your mom said I had something to talk about with you?”

  Melmarc nodded. He’d thought that they’d already talked about it in the last few days without him being around. If not, he’d just assumed that it would happen with his parents around. He wasn’t against talking about it now, though.

  “Well,” his uncle said. “I’m interested in talking about that. But ask your next question.”

  “Do mom and dad know that you can see interfaces?” he asked, genuinely curious.

  “No idea,” Uncle Dorthna answered. “But I doubt that there’s anything you can tell them about me that will surprise them.”

  “So, this is not our little secret?” Melmarc asked. They’d had a lot of those growing up. When Ark had learned to pick a lock. The first time he’d fought Ark and lost. Ninra punishing Ark by keeping dinner from him.

  The little things.

  His uncle chuckled. “Alright, let me do the job of a proper adult right now and tell you something. When you do something wrong or bad and an adult catches you or witnesses it, that can be the both of you’s little secret. When you catch an adult doing something wrong or bad or you learn something new about the adult that they ask you to keep a secret…”

  “That’s not a secret that you keep from your parents,” Melmarc finished with a groan. “I know, Uncle D. I’m not a kid. I’m not ten. I’m sixteen.”

  “Sure thing.” Uncle Dorthna rolled his eyes. “I just told you that I’m older than you grandparents and you think sixteen is not a kid to me. Anyway, next question.”

  Melmarc knew what the question was going to be.

  “How did you get so strong?”

  “Age, experience, risks, very up close conversations with death, a lot of luck, terrible enemies.” Uncle Dorthna shrugged. “Sadly, while anybody can become strong, not everybody will become strong. Some people are born talented. Some are born without talent but have a lot of luck in life. Then there are those that have none but claw their way to the top. But there is a sure method that works for everybody. In the world of murim, they’ll tell you that strength boils down to two things; hard work and dedication. You can’t go wrong with those. With age and enough life and death situations, you’ve got yourself a recipe for power. There aren’t a lot of people who have had the kinds of up close conversations I’ve had with death and come out alive, though. So not everybody gets to where I am.”

  “Murim?” Melmarc gave his uncle a questioning look. “You’re quoting manhwas now?”

  “Manhwa?” Uncle Dorthna looked confused for a moment before adding, “Yes, manhwas. It being a manhwa doesn’t mean it’s not right, though.”

  “True,” Melmarc agreed. “Your turn. What are we talking about?”

  Uncle Dorthna got up from Ark’s bed and walked up to Melmarc. Bending down, he picked a strand of hair and pulled.

  Nothing happened. So, he pulled again. Again, nothing happened.

  When he looked down at Melmarc, Melmarc shrugged.

  It wasn’t painful. Each time his uncle had pulled, it had felt as if someone was drawing on his finger or his hair. He was aware that someone was pulling on him but it didn’t give the sensation that came with someone actually pulling at a strand of hair.

  “Ow?” Melmarc muttered when his uncle pulled out a random strand of hair from a different section.

  Blowing the strand into the wind, his uncle said, “Interesting.”

  Then he returned to the original patch of hair and pulled. This time, the strand of hair came free and his uncle held in his hand a strand of pure white hair.

  It was a long strand of white hair, longer than Melmarc’s longest finger. His uncle turned it one way then the other, studying it as if it was some out of the world specimen.

  “That’s my hair color?” Melmarc asked.

  “Just a part of it,” Uncle Dorthna answered. “When you went into a fit, you were drawing in and generating too much raw mana while your body was trying to assimilate it and use it to protect yourself. With your [Purified] trait that’s basically turned your mana into pure mana, I’m not very surprised that it worked at your age and level.”

  Melmarc had all but forgotten about his trait [Purified]. If he remembered correctly, it made all his skills work with pure mana.

  “I’m guessing the white hair means something,” Melmarc said.

  Uncle Dorthna nodded. “It means that you assimilated a little too well with the pure mana. Usually, the few times I’ve seen this happen, the person usually ends up with a strand or two. You have an entire patch of it. Then again, most of the people I’ve seen go through it already have an established type of mana within them, mana that has grown from their existence and from living to the level of power they had. You’re a new B-rank. I guess your body didn’t have a strongly dedicated mana type so it just bound itself to pure mana…” he frowned. “Like the Observers.”

  “Observers?” There was something ominous about the way Uncle Dorthna had said the word.

  Uncle Dorthna dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “Not important. They are extinct and forgotten for a good reason. What I’m saying is that your hair is proof that you’ve bonded with pure mana. For now, it’s not so much of a big deal since no one would understand what the hair implies. But it’s a good bad thing, I guess. But mostly good.”

  “Should I be worried?” Melmarc asked.

  “Nope.” Uncle Dorthna was still looking at the strand of hair. He looked mesmerized.

  Both of them were stuck in a very short moment of silence when two things happened at once. Uncle Dorthna dipped his hand inside the pocket of his pants while the door to the room opened wider and Ark walked inside.

  “Is he awake?” was the first thing out of Ark’s mouth.

  “I’m listening,” Uncle Dorthna said at the same time, placing his cell phone to his ear. “Right now?” he paused as he listened to the person on the other end. “The kids?” Another pause. “Alright, got it.”

  He got up from the bed with the phone still placed against his ear as Ark walked up to them with a look of relief on his face.

  “How do you feel?” he asked as he and Uncle Dorthna walked passed each other.

  Spitfire swiped at his foot with one of its limbs casually but Ark was looking back at the door.

  After a moment, he looked back to Melmarc and thumbed over his shoulder at the door.

  “Is it just me,” he said, “or does Uncle D look very excited?”

  Melmarc shrugged. “No idea.”

  …

  Dorthna took the phone from his ear and walked casually down the stairs. While Aurora’s call to release some of the defensive spells that kept people from this world from being able to find the house was odd, he had more interesting things on his mind.

  With a single gesture, he dismissed a sufficient number of spells protecting the house while staring at the strand of hair in his hand.

  Even as strong as he was and as old as he was, luck still continued to play a part in his life. Melmarc had a full patch of white hair. The boy had quite literally bonded with the level of pure mana that beings at the pinnacle of their powers had failed to bond to. Then again, the stronger you grew, the stronger your identity. And the stronger your sense of self within existence, the harder it was to bind to anything.

  In truth, Melmarc wasn’t supposed to be able to do what he had done. Not at his age or level. But the boy was a walking encyclopedia of luck. What were the odds that the boy had survived an injury from an [Intruder] at a very young age? What were the odds that said [Intruder] just happened to be a very very very rare user of pure mana? What were the odds that the boy had successfully assimilated with said pure mana, developed a class that quite specifically dealt with taking in mana and replicating it, then met with a void-beast that had sped up his process of becoming an [August Intruder] from at least a few decades to right now and then experiencing a state of a Mad god?

  Dorthna almost burst out laughing.

  Melmarc did not know it but he was the definition of walking luck. It reminded him of the Observers of old. With different titles there were Observers of suffering and Observers of luck. Or, as some people liked to call them, the Suffering Ones and the Lucky Ones.

  Dorthna paused half-way down the stairs.

  Melmarc was a little too lucky. What were the chances that it wasn’t luck? Dorthna shook his head. The boy wasn’t some hidden mastermind.

  It just feels too good to be true.

  There was also the voidbeast, but those creatures could not act outside of their instincts. And while their instincts had loop holes, there was none that deep.

  Dorthna looked at Melmarc’s strand of hair as he finally walked into the living room. Luck had smiled on him and he’d found himself acquainted with an untainted holder of the title of [Mana-touched]. And it wasn’t just mana, it was pure mana.

  Melmarc had no idea the kind of powerhouse he would be if he lived long enough. An [August Intruder] blessed by pure mana was unheard of.

  If he could arrange the contract properly, he could get a significant source of pure mana over a period of time without harming the boy.

  You might not be able to break the curse but you might be able to grow your skill masteries back in a few decades.

  The smile that touched his lips was a little too wide. So wide that when a local portal warped to life in the middle of the living room, the smile did not leave his face.

  Dorthna stepped up to it, intrigued. “Now what do we have here?”

  The portal vanished a moment later as if it was sucked into a void. Gone, it left behind three people. Two men, one of which was on the floor with his hands and kness, and a woman.

  Dorthna recognized one of the men as a member of Madness’ Delving team. The woman was Aurora who looked at him with terror and imploration in her eyes.

  “Help him,” she begged, rushing to Dorthna. “Please. I’ll give you anything. I’ll give you my life, just help him.”

  Madness’ teammate, Fendor, if he was remembering it correctly, looked very puzzled. Dorthna didn’t blame him. Instead, he fixed his attention on the second man.

  Madness trembled, body twitching on his hands and knees. When he looked up at Dorthna, Dorthna sighed at the stupidity of the Oaths of Madness.

  David Lockwood, father to an [August Intruder] and a [Demon King], and Oath of Madness of this world, was in a terrible state.

  Blood spilled from his mouth, nose, eyes and ears in massive rivulets, staining the ground crimson. Yet, there was no sign of pain on his face.

  The Oath of Madness was dying.