Nick, and Exchange soon reached far below the surface of the water, where it was very dark. Nick could no longer see where he was going, and so he asked Exchange:
"I cannot see the surroundings anymore. How do I restore my sight down here in the depths?"
Exchange answered from within the darkness, not being visible to Nick anymore:
"Those who go deep often feel like they are surrounded by darkness. It is frightening, painful, and lonely being in the dark because very few dare to come this far, and so avoid suffering from the pressure of the depths. Hmmm…I will make another exchange with you. If you stay down here with me indefinitely, in addition to giving me your undivided attention, I will invite a friend to our location, and he will restore your sight."
Nick was wary of remaining at the depths indefinitely because like Exchange said, it was frightening, painful, and lonely down here. The pressure was just too much! But ultimately, Nick urgently wanted to see his surroundings again, so he made another agreement with Exchange:
"I will stay down here indefinitely if you invite your friend to restore my sight."
After hearing Nick's agreement, Exchange celebrated within the darkness, saying:
"He agreed to it! Now I do not have to bear the pressure alone. The company of others lessons worldly pressures, after all."
Soon, a bright light appeared in the distance, far away from Nick. Nick squinted his eyes to try, and determine the identity of the light source, but failed to do so. Over time, the light came closer until it was so close that Nick's surroundings appeared lit again.
At that time, he was able to identify the light source. The light came from a bulb attached to the forehead appendage of a creature that looked like a great-white-shark-sized angler fish. The angler fish looked scary to Nick, so he asked it in a hurry:
"Who are you?"
The angler fish answered using a deep tone:
"My name is Unequal. I am a friend of Exchange. Since he has called me here, together we are known as Unequal Exchange."
Nick replied with obvious incredulity in his tone:
"Unequal Exchange? What kind of ridiculous name is that?"
Exchange intervened in the conversation by answering Nick:
"You have given me your undivided attention, and you have agreed to stay down here in the depths indefinitely with me while I have only given you a temporary place to hide from the societies. What else do you call that but an unequal exchange?"
Hearing exchange's words, Nick realized that he had been scammed, and so complained to Exchange:
"You tricked me! This situation is not fair because I have received nothing for the time that I am spending in the depths. Allow me to renege on our agreement."
Exchange replied to Nick's complaints, and request cheekily:
"Surely not!"
Nick continued to direct his complaints at Exchange for seemingly hours, calling the latter a charlatan, and a thief. Exchange eventually became tired, and annoyed of Nick's complaining, so he said:
"I will make another agreement with you. I will invite my other friend to our location, and once he is here, he will give you a method to freely renege on all our past agreements. I will need your honesty in return, so that you cannot lie to me."
Nick thought that if all it would cost him to renege on the promises that he had made to Exchange was to be honest with it, such an agreement was definitely worthwhile. Nick immediately agreed to Exchange's proposal:
"I will be completely honest with you from now on. Now, invite your other friend to our location."
Exchange cheerily replied:
"An honest request will be completed for an honest man!"
Following Exchange's words, a large creature that looked like a jelly fish, slowly floated up to their position from the depths. Its body was see-through, so Nick could see its organs, and bodily processes. Horrified, Nick asked the creature:
"Who are you, and why can I see your insides from out here?"
The creature leisurely answered Nick's question:
"My name is Equal. Since my friend Exchange is also here, together we are Equal Exchange. Don't you know that equal exchanges are usually transparent? That is why you can see through my body."
Nick was too concerned about his past promises to think too much about Equal's words. He soon demanded:
"Quick! Tell me a method that I can use to renege on my agreements with Exchange."
Equal leisurely replied:
"Because you are an honest man, all you have to do to renege on your agreements is to tell Exchange that you are leaving the depths, and go back to the surface. No one has really trapped you here, and Exchange never had a right to keep you here in the first place. Any agreement can be broken once one party realizes that it involves an unequal exchange."
Nick replied while maintaining a doubtful expression:
"Are you sure that this is the correct method? I made an equal exchange with Exchange to get you here. Is it alright that you help me conspire against him like this?"
Equal laughed for a few seconds before answering Nick:
"Is an agreement the reason that Exchange gave you for why I am here? I did not come here because he called me. I often visit him of my own accord, at my leisure. Ha! You call that an equal exchange? Remember, whether an exchange is equal, or unequal is often based on the individual perceptions of the persons making the exchange.
You were tricked! That being the case, at least you went deep enough to experience, and learn. Now, go back to the surface, and do not make the same mistakes again."
Nick's expression became one of shock as he realized that he was never trapped down in the depths by Exchange, all this time. He therefore immediately began to swim back to the surface where the sun shone in his eyes.
A society that had its head above the water noticed Nick's sudden appearance. It then loudly made comments based on Nick's still shocked expression, while maintaining a smug expression on its own face:
"Serves you right! Everyone who goes deep is shocked by what they discover!"
Nick heard those words, and as if in response, his vision went completely dark.
********************************************************
When Nick's sight returned, he found himself still in a stooping position while touching the forehead of the Twilight Magician's corpse using his right index, and middle fingers. Nick calmly removed his fingers from the corpse, and mused:
(I can use this corpse to exchange for something better. I just have to think a little unconventionally to do it. Giant's Ruin is a realm that is frequented by Magicians, and is infested with magic beasts. This is the corpse of a rank 7 Magician that includes thousands of magical units of his magic energy. In a realm filled with resources, I do not believe that I cannot exchange this corpse that I can hardly make use of, for something more useful…)
Nick's thoughts began to spin intensely as his intuition went to work. After a few hours of contemplating, he decided on a course of action:
(Exchange, unequal exchange, equal exchange. I can make use of such rule path principles here, but without rule path magic materials, any magic formation that I create will have to be verbose to help me with my problem. Then there is soul path, and space path to consider in the equation…)
A few more hours later, Nick used his inter-realm smart phone to call Dewy. Dewy promptly accepted the call:
"This is Dewy."
"Dewy. This is Nick. I will be away from the office for a while handling some things. There should be enough cash reserves to last the company for months. Continue having the staff trained until I get back. Call me if anything changes. Oh, and if Carla Jenner appears, tell her what I told you. In addition, she is allowed to finance, or run the company in my place if she wants to."
Dewy was confused. Nick was speaking as if he would be gone for a long time. After thinking for a few seconds, he, however, realized that with Nick being a powerful Magician, him being gone for a long time wouldn't be that strange. He thought that the points about Carla Jenner were definitely strange, though. Dewy asked:
"I was made aware that you had some sort of arrangement with the Jenners, but is it safe to allow this Carla Jenner such control of this company?"
Nick indifferently replied:
"Yes, it's completely safe. Rather than thinking of her as Carla Jenner, you can refer to her as Carla Capitol. Do you understand?"
Dewy was immediately shocked in response to the revelation. He stuttered into the phone:
"Do…do…you…you..mean…"
Wanting to stop listening to Dewy stutter Nick spoke to him one final time:
"Carla happens to be my wife. She is trust worthy as far as the company goes. If you guys run out of money for some reason, get some more from her, but she is not allowed to displace any of my original staff. I will talk to you again at another time."
Before Dewy could ask any more questions, Nick ended the call. He then summoned his tablet computer from his space band, and began using it to help him design a magic formation that would make proper use of the Twilight Magician's corpse. He thought:
(I cannot waste the opportunity in front of me.)
Nick worked on his new magic formation while having the intention of not leaving Giant's Ruin until he created useful results.
Like this, one year passed, then two years passed, and finally three years passed.
Nick had not left the inheritance ground in all that time, and only focused on designing a new magic formation. Carla had called him many times during this period, but he had ignored all her calls because he did not want to listen to her demands, or explain what he was doing.
At the end of the three years since Nick began his closed door cultivation, he finally had a viable version of a rule path, soul path, and space path magic formation that he believed would make perfect use of the Twilight Magician's rank 7 corpse, and magic energy.
One morning, Nick stood up onto his feet, and summoned a large jar of blue, rank 3 formation dust into his hands from one of his space bands. He then emptied the jar before exuding his magic energy to rearrange the resulting clusters of blue dust. Since Nick had already designed the magic formation over three years, he was completely familiar with its laws.
Laying the base of the new magic formation therefore took only a few days using his own magic energy to organize the formation dust. Such efficiency was the purpose of the formation dust in the first place. The magic formation's laws consisted of Valteese, Nickel, and D-Soul symbols of which numbered over five million all together. The magic formation floated two feet above the ground, and slowly rotated in a clockwise direction. Despite its many laws, it had a radius of one meter.
(I will call this magic formation the Exchange Formation. Its backbone is rule path in which the principles of equal, and unequal exchange are used to consume magic items to obtain other items of comparable value within a realm. Space path, and soul path laws are used to support rule path here, especially in terms of retrieving the items up for 'exchange'.
This usefulness of this magic formation probably depends a lot on luck since it can only retrieve items available within a realm that are not being guarded by beings higher than rank 3. But because most of Giant's Ruin is wilderness, this is less of a concern because many useful magic items are probably laying around, undiscovered.
Using this magic formation on Grand Earth would, however, be a problem because treasures were often heavily guarded there, and even if I did succeeded in performing an exchange, I might end up being hunted down for theft.)
Nick soon summoned hundreds of pieces of rank 2, and rank 3 formation path, space path, and soul path materials from his space bands onto the ground, greatly lowering his stock. Following the appearance of the magic materials, a thick, grey fog was emanated from the magic formation that engulfed the magic materials, assimilating them into the magic formation's design within minutes. Following that, the grey fog receded into the magic formation, and dissipated.
Nick then stepped onto the surface of the magic formation, and was held up by its magic power. He patiently sat down cross-legged at the center of the magic formation. He then exuded enough of his magic energy to let the invisible beast be formed after letting go of his conscious control of a portion of his magic energy. Nick sensed that the invisible beast was large enough to loom over him, and the magic formation.
Nick willed it, and the invisible beast grabbed the Twilight Magician's opened coffin, and placed it at Nick's immediate left side, on the magic formation. Nick then activated the magic formation by speaking its trigger phrase:
"Begin."
The magic formation immediately changed from a blue colour, to a brilliantly glowing, gold color. It also began turning at rapid speeds, but the portion that Nick, and the coffin rested on remained still. Nick deeply breathed in, and then breathed out before clasping both his hands together, and closing his eyes.
Following those actions, the Twilight Magician's corpse began to slowly turn to fine dust, and its magic energy began to flow out of its mindscape, at which point the rank 7 magic energy was consumed by the Exchange Formation, which caused the magic formation's gold glow to become even brighter as time went by.
After about one minute of this, Nick began to receive all sorts of images within his mind that revealed various magic beasts, magic plants, magic item, souls, carcasses, and corpses within Giant's Ruin that he would have never been able to find had he had tried to explore the realm in search of them. This was mostly because these things were in the territories of powerful magic beasts, or herds, or swarms of them.
Nick smiled while his eyes remained closed because he was glad that the Exchange Formation was working as expected. Hundreds of images appeared within Nick's mind every minute, and after ten minutes of receiving them, Nick's thoughts settled on a trace of magic power that the Exchange Formation had revealed to him.
A few moments later, a floating, glowing, silver orb that had a radius of two meters appeared hovering a few meters above the magic formation. The silver orb was clearly the soul of a magic beast. By that time, half the Twilight Magician's corpse had been turned to dust. A few minutes after, Nick's thoughts settled on another trace of magic power, and following that, a floating, glowing, black orb that was half the size of the first also appeared above the magic formation. This was clearly another magic beast soul.
Immediately after the second magic beast soul appeared, The Twilight Magician's magic energy was all consumed by the Exchange Formation, and the corpse completely turned into dust that scattered into the surroundings, leaving an empty coffin behind.
Nick then opened his eyes, and raised himself to his feet. Looking at the large souls above him, Nick couldn't help but break his indifferent expression to laugh maniacally for nearly one minute. He mused thereafter, returning his expression to it usual indifference:
(These two souls belonged to rank 5 magic beasts. I know that much because of the characteristics they have. Based on my previous experiments, souls belonging to rank 4, and below magic beasts will in most cases have a white hue while souls belonging to regular ranked magic beasts appear to have various colors.
I had also equipped the Exchange Formation to make estimations of the value of whatever its magic power influenced, and on a scale of 1 to 10, these two were revealed to be 8s. The scale is based on the magic items' value to me, and although it seems like an arbitrary rating system, rule magic does not lie, because rule path acts based exact principles, no matter how cryptic those principles may be.
The silver soul should be from a rank 5, soul path magic beast, and the black soul should be from a rank 5, space path magic beast. I can use the soul path magic beast's soul to produce magic energy that nourishes my mindscape, and I might be able to get a few talents from the space path magic beast's soul.
That being said, I could also use the magic power within the space path magic beast's soul to produce magic energy to nourish my mindscape, but I would rather have rare talents…)
Nick did not delay in taking action. He made the Exchange Formation self-destruct because it was now useless without sufficient capital to make a worthy exchange, which Nick did not currently have. The coffin fell to the ground like a stone after the magic formation vanished.
Next, he set up the Soul Examination Formation to examine the laws of the space path magic beast's soul. He spent another six months identifying laws on the soul that were probably related to talents.
Nick then used the power of the Soul Examination Formation to create four split souls from the space path magic beast's soul that each had a set of the laws that Nick was interested in, while also preserving the main soul, but its size had reduced to one quarter of what it was before. Nick decided it would still be useful by converting its remaining magic power into magic energy that would nourish his mindscape, albeit, at far less efficiency than the soul path magic beast's soul.
Nick soon easily created a minor split soul using his own soul, and then acted to merge all five split souls together. Nick was not worried about the splits souls of the magic beast overwhelming his own soul because human souls innately had far greater intelligence than that of magic beasts, even if that magic beast was rank 5, and Nick had also cultivated his soul well enough so far.
The initial merging process took another four months to complete. When Nick tried to merge the resulting minor split soul with his soul, he became severely ill for three months before he recovered. He then spent seven months using the Soul Examination Formation, and Eyes of the Fated to make descriptions of the supposed new talents that he had gained. At the end of that period, he summarized his results on his tablet computer:
_________________________________________________________
Natural Space -> space path laws related to the host become twice as effective.
Vacuum Perception -> the host's perception of empty space is extraordinary.
Past Glory -> the host's base affinities are refined to the earliest purity of its species.
Warp Talent -> the host's entire being moves through empty space without much difficulty.
_________________________________________________________
Nick was pleased with the description of his talents, but he would have to cultivate further to find out how useful they were. He was especially curious about the Past Glory talent because it did not seem like a space path talent, based on its description.
Having completed a portion of his planned cultivation, Nick caused the Soul Examination Formation to self-destruct. After sleeping for two days, Nick set up a magic formation to convert the magic power of the rank 5 magic beast souls to magic energy.
He spent a few days setting up the relevant rank 3, rule path, and soul path magic formation before he began working on the soul path magic beast's soul using the magic formation. Using the magic formation to slowly convert the soul's magic power to magic energy, and using that magic energy to nurture his mindscape took nine months.
After that time, Nick had not noticed anything that was obviously different from before, so he immediately moved on to performing the same process using the space path magic beast's soul. It took Nick only one month to almost fully make use of the relatively little magic energy that he derived from this soul, but to Nick, this latter period of earnest meditation was starting to feel like the straw that would brake the camel's back.
Within Nick's mindscape, his consciousness swirled around the last bit of his formless magic energy that had been derived from the rank 5, space path magic beast's soul. His mindscape was now devoid of magic energy because it had apparently stopped producing it. Nick had been so obsessed with using up the last of the higher quality magic energy that he had not noticed that his mindscape had somehow become a blue void that was now completely without magic energy.
Nick was perplexed:
(What happened? Why did my mindscape stop producing magic energy? Was I really so focused on meditation that I ignored that fact?)
Nick was not sure what to do. For some reason, his formation laws, and mindscape were unresponsive. He immediately became worried:
(Don't tell me that I cultivated so much that I harmed my mindscape without noticing. This doesn't look like 'empty skies', so my mindscape shouldn't be crippled.)
Nick tried to eject his consciousness from his mindscape, but soon realized that he could not do so. He was therefore trapped in perpetual meditation. Nick had no choice but to wait until something happened because he could do absolutely nothing, and panicking would be of no help. Nick tried to wake the sleeping, blue-scaled dragon, but he could not do that either.
It felt like days passed before there was any change. At that time, the blue-scaled dragon that was usually asleep finally woke up. It did not say a word to Nick. It simply opened its red-blue eyes before completely transforming into blue-red magic aura that spread throughout the deep-blue void.
The red-blue aura then transformed into many brightly twinkling, red-blue stars, similar to the one that Nick had always had within his mindscape. In response to noticing the similarity, Nick looked up at his original red-blue star, and not surprisingly, it was in the same position as always, but the other stars that had less brilliantly twinkled around it were all now gaining a brilliant, red-blue hue.
Within what seemed like hours, Nick's deep-blue-void mindscape was filled with thousands of red-blue stars. Nick approached one of them to try to interact with it, but when he did so, it seemed to move away from him, not wanting him near it. After a while of playing a frustrating game of tag, Nick found out that he could not get too close to any of the red-blue stars, or they would float away from him.
At about that time, his mindscape began producing magic energy again. The magic energy was basically as invisible as before, but the space that it came in contact with no longer vibrated. Nick sensed the magic energy clearly, though, and because he could, he realized that it had a quality that was many folds higher than what he was used to.
When he made that realization, new information suddenly inundated his mind. This information was in relation to the current laws of his own meditation technique, and set of foundation laws.
(What? They have been altered without my intervention? This…this…)
Nick thoughts spun as he looked through the changes that he could suddenly intuit like an instinct. The new magical laws were not more numerous per se, but were more complex in layout, and wording, like a child's poem that had been revised by a master. This had all been done in Valteese, and Nick was made aware that these were the laws of his new meditation technique, and the laws that now made up his foundation laws.
He intuited the cause of this phenomenon immediately:
(Is this natural inspiration? I am not new to natural inspiration because my rule path talent, Limitless Path, gives me inspiration occasionally, but I had not expected the same thing to happen to my meditation technique, and foundation laws automatically. Even my mindscape has experienced drastic changes without me even consciously using the new meditation technique…)
Instead of pondering more, Nick decided to put the new meditation technique into practise:
(I am no longer ordinary in my beliefs, in my inner power, or in my destiny. The rules that lord over the universe are somehow at my fingertips, only miles within reach…)
Nick's mind suddenly became hazy as he spoke his new meditation, word for word, without cease until the end:
(...may the lord over all existence have mercy on whoever crosses my limitless path.)
Following those words, Nick's consciousness was finally ejected from his mindscape. He opened his eyes, and immediately stood up while sweat poured down his face. Nick somehow knew that his rank had advanced, but his progress felt creepy because it was so unexpected that he almost could not believe it.
"Have I really become rank 4?"
To perform a test, Nick exuded enough of his magic energy to saturate the interior of the tree. He then tried to activate his talent:
(Cursed Vessel.)
Nick tried to activate Cursed Vessel six times, but his talent did not respond to him. He thought:
(Has Cursed Vessel become ineffective, now? How am I supposed to leave this inheritance ground, then? Should I use my magic to get rid of the tree around me?)
As soon as Nick had that thought, however, the evergreen tree that had housed him for years suddenly vanished.
"Huh?"
Nick was once again exposed to the outside where the strength path aura resulting from the deceased giant's magic power plagued the surroundings. Ignoring what just happened, Nick decided that he needed to leave this region before the strength path aura began to affect him. He remembered that he had the crustal coal that Flynn had given him, and then he also remembered the Magicians Association's space magic formation. He contemplated?
(Should I use the crustal coal to get back to Grand Earth? I could always use the distance between here, and the Magicians Association's space magic formation to figure out my new powers…)
Almost as soon as Nick thought deeply enough about the Magicians Association's space magic formation, his perspective suddenly changed to include a raised, stone platform that had a yellow magic formation on its surface. Nick lowered his head to take a good look at his position, and asked aloud, confused:
"Isn't this the Magicians Association's space magic formation? How did I get here?"
Nick then thought about his previous position near the rank 7 giant's carcass, and suddenly, he was standing in that position once again. Nick silently looked around before thinking about the Magicians Association's space magic formation again, and before he really knew what happened, he was standing over it again.
Nick repeated the same thoughts, and actions four more times before his magic energy ran out, and he could no longer teleport between positions. At that moment, the truth finally hit Nick like a brick.
(The ability of my Cursed Vessel talent has evolved, and now it has become like an instinct to me, similar to moving my arms. I do not need to think about the talent to use it. Instead, I have to think about the place that I want to teleport to. It seems that I can now teleport to places that I have already been without using a scouting method, but going between here, and the central region of Giant's Ruin obviously requires a lot of magic energy…)
When the thought of his magic energy reserves crossed his mind, Nick realized that he suddenly had far more reserves than before. After thinking for a few seconds, Nick came up with a number:
(I now have a magic energy holding capacity of 500,000 magical units! Wait…what about Spatial Awareness? How has that talent changed?)
Nick found that he could also now make use of Spatial Awareness like an innate instinct, and by the time that he thought about what the surrounding terrain was like, a three-dimensional rendering of the area around him appeared within his mind, covering dozens of kilometers all around himself. Nick soon even adjusted the magic rendering to spot himself from above, standing on the stone platform.
Nick chuckled in response to perceiving his evidently convenient magic power. He soon muttered:
"So, I really am rank 4. Hmmm…when the work is done, results will appear naturally. My success seems ordinary because that is what most real success looks like in the first place. I learned that years ago, but I guess that I forgot over time."
Nick sat at the edge of the stone platform, and passively recovered some of his magic energy while attempting to process some outside his body. Large volumes of invisible magic energy were instantly processed, and Nick immediately drew in all of it until half his mindscape was filled after ten seconds. Nick tried to process more outside his body after half a minute, but he could not. Nick's magic energy reserves were soon completely filled within a minutes.
Following that, he exuded all his magic energy until his reserves were empty again. After doing that, he tried to process magic energy outside his body, which he was now successfully ably to do. He was also able to draw in magic energy until he had restored half of his total magic energy reserves. At that point, passive recovery took over, and he could not willfully draw any more magic energy into his mindscape.
Nick experimented a few more times before concluding:
(I can fill my magic energy reserves by half fairly quickly, about ten seconds is required, but beyond that point, slower passive recovery, or active meditation has to be used for me to further recover magic energy. That is an interesting improvement to my special grade mindscape. It seems like my passive, and active magic energy recovery rates have remained the same, though. I do not mind that since my magic energy holding capacity has increased by two and a half times.)
Nick waited for his magic energy reserves to recover to the maximum while he simply ignored his magic energy that he had left out in the surroundings. At that point, Nick sensed all that magic energy quickly condense into an enormous creature that loomed over him. Like before, the creature made from his magic energy was invisible, but Nick could sense its form clearly as it lowered its long neck, and its large head came within inches of him.
Nick recognized its form as similar to the dragon that had resided within his mindscape before he became rank 4. Meaning that its general form was that of a four-legged, European dragon that had a long, flexible neck.
(My magic energy takes on the form of an invisible dragon when I am not consciously controlling it. I have to admit, that's damn cool. The invisible dragon becomes easier to use now that I can sense its form clearly. Such a thing will definitely be difficult for my enemies to defend against if they are not aware of it. My powers are becoming more threatening in nature as I advance. That's a good thing.)
Nick sighed aloud, knowing that after such a long time, he had arrived at another major milestone.
(I have been cultivating within Giant's Ruin for five and a half years. That means that about one year has passed on Grand Earth. Carla must be furious that I have not contacted her in that long. The Order of the United Realm must be planning to hunt me down by now, or they've already assumed that I am dead…)
Nick used Spatial Awareness to look over his body, and he was satisfied that there were no physical changes. He still had white hair, brown skin, and spiraling, blue eyes. He currently wore, a red silk polo shirt, a pair of dark-blue jeans pants, a pair of black leather gloves, and a pair of black leather combat boots. He sported Hollow Shade on his left wrist, his two space bands on his right wrist, and beneath his gloves, he sported Sheer Soul on his right-middle finger, and his gold wedding ring on his left-middle finger.
Nick soon waved his right hand, which caused the invisible dragon to disperse into free flowing magic energy. He then summoned the pebble-sized piece of crustal coal from one of his space bands into his right grip, and crushed it by tightly clenching his right hand. Nick instantly vanished from Giant's Ruin when he did that.
Nick's perspective immediately changed from Giant Ruin's wilderness to the interior of a grey-brick-lined room that had a yellow magic formation painted onto the floor. Nick proceeded to use the metal door to leave, after which, he walked down the corridor into the Magicians Association's reception lobby. Nick commented:
"This place has not changed in over a year. I guess that shouldn't be surprising. Magicians aren't decorators."
Nick leisurely walked through the entrance to get to the outside, after which, he used his smartphone to look up a phone number before making a call to that number. The person on the other end picked up almost immediately:
"This is the Order of the United Realm."
"Yeah…this is Nick Capitol. I was supposed to report for my mandatory appointment one year ago. I guess I overslept. Can you tell whoever is in charge that I will be at the headquarters in a few days."
"Please hold…"
Nick waited for one minute before a stern voice sounded from his phone:
"Nick Capitol. You sure have some lion guts to call here. If not for the fact that I was told that you went missing within a realm, I would have already gone to London to drag you here by force."
Nick was surprised by this person's bluntness, but not afraid. He politely asked:
"To whom may I be referring?"
"This is Arnold Shooster, brat. You are to report to headquarters within five days, or I will come find you. Is that clear?"
Nick replied flippantly:
"Crystal, sir."
Shooster did not like Nick's tone, but he was too busy to curse out a rank 3 Magician, so he just hung up. After speaking with Shooster, Nick called Carla. She accepted the call immediately, threatening:
"If you do not give me a good reason. I swear…"
Nick interrupted her by indifferently saying:
"That is no way to talk to your husband after so long. I want to kiss, and make up. Where can I meet you?"
Carla responded with a clearly displeased tone:
"Kiss, and make up? He, he, he. Okay, Nick honey. Meet me at the estate where we had our wedding in two hours. I really cannot wait to see you."
Carla ended the call after saying those words. Nick was not afraid of Carla. Although he did not know her exact stage at rank 4 a year ago, now that he was rank 4 himself, he had the qualifications to escape from her if he needed to.
Nick then called Dewy, who promptly picked up the phone:
"Nick, it has been so long. We never needed to call you because things were running smoothly here."
"Oh, really? The money hasn't run out?"
"Not at all. Carla…I mean, your wife made sure that our finances were stable the whole time that you were gone. She did nothing else, though, and all the employees have basically just been taking courses, and receiving lectures for an entire year. I bet that we have some of the most skilled people in the industry by now."
"Well, that's great. I will probably be back at the office within a day, or two to explain some things. By the way, how many people know about my exact relationship with Carla?"
"Everyone does, Nick. Carla made sure to emphasize it when she came to our offices on a few occasions. She is very displeased with you."
"She'll have to get over it. Like I said, see you soon."
Nick ended the call, but did not leave the Magicians Association's property just yet. He spotted a three-meter-high tree that had a thick trunk in the parking lot, and went under its shade. He leaned on the tree's trunk while summoning a bag of butter bread from one of his space bands, and slowly ate it while watching traffic, and people walking by. Some children pointed Nick out to their parents because of his appearance, but Nick did not mind the attention.
Nick stayed like that for nearly two hours until he threw the packaging for the finished butter bread in a nearby trash bin. After he turned a away from the bin, he thought about the Jenners' estate where he had gotten married, and took one more step using his right foot.
With the loss of over 30,000 magical units of magic energy, Nick instantly found himself in front of a mansion's two wooden, front doors as his right foot touched the floor of the mansion's exterior section. Nick did not want to use Spatial Awareness to peer inside the mansion at this time because there could be Regular Magicians inside that might sense him, and be offended. Nick braced himself before using his right hand to knock on the right-front door, loudly declaring:
"Is anyone there? I am here to meet Carla!"
After he spoke, Nick's magic sense suddenly picked up on a surge in shadow magic power that was nearby, and that was rapidly heading in his direction.
"Huh?"
(Mighty Shadow)