Hello, everyone on reading this.

This story was written originally on Wattpad but I felt the need to publish it here as well. Can't say why exactly but it's happened so...

I've been pretty lackadaisical with it, so I decided to finally talk to you guys, it's chapter 3 but ignore how late it is...

Anyway, leave reviews please. Bye.

BTW, I'm called @i_am_delusional on Wattpad.

Pronunciations.

Kellen: Self explanatory.

Ra'meth: Ra as in rat, meth as in crystal...you get the point.

Ke'heops: Kay hopes, lmao.

Shalla: self explanatory.

Panahsi: Pan ah see.

Nephenia: self explanatory as well.

Mer'esan(will appear this chapter): Mer as in merry Ehsan.

Ferius Parfax: self explanatory.

We good? Enjoy the chapter.

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My eyes were assaulted by sunlight immediately they opened, effectively removing any grogginess I should have felt after just waking up.

I sat up on my bed, my mood already soured by the unusually bright morning sun.

I sat there for a few minutes collecting my thoughts and trying to remember why I felt some sort of anticipation for today.

It didn't take me long to remember Rimuru Tempest's words yesterday.

"But first I'll have to return these." I muttered as my eyes caught the deck of cards I had left on a nearby stool.

Ferius had made it clear that she didn't want them anymore.

My father had also made it clear that I should return them.

It was quite obvious who I would listen to.

My door opened abruptly, letting someone I wasn't yet interested in seeing into my room.

Barring her bold and rude entrance, she seemed hesitant, as if unsure how to interact with me after yesterday.

"How are you doing?" Shalla asked.

Even if I got angry now and yelled at her, it wouldn't make any difference. In Shalla's eyes, she had gone a bit too far, but she probably saw no error in her act itself.

"Fine actually." I reached out for my robe nearby and put it on, grabbing the cards from their perch.

"Oh that's good to hear. Wait, where are you going?" She asked as she noticed me preparing to move out.

"Father instructed me to return these." I held up the cards to her face.

"Nooo. He said he'd send a servant to do it." That is very correct, Shalla. I don't care though.

I ignored her and reached out for my door handle but it was pushed open before I could reach it.

My father appeared in the doorway, his eyes taking in everything from the pouting Shalla to the cards I clutched in my left hand.

"There's a message for you at the door." He said, not commenting on what he saw here.

"A message? For me?" My confusion was understandable. Who would send a message to me, and why would my father take it upon himself to tell me personally?

"It's urgent." He didn't explain and began to walk away.

I followed close behind him, stuffing the cards into my pocket.

At the doorstep stood my mother and a stoic looking man carefully holding a large envelope.

What's a palace guard doing here? And why does he have something for me?

"Kellen of the house of Ke, a message." He extended the package to me.

I looked at my parents one by one before receiving it and carefully opening the unusually heavy envelope.

I turned the envelope upside down and gave it a gentle shake, trying to get the item that was making it weigh more.

A golden disk fell into my palm, followed by a letter, but it was almost invisible as my eyes and mind zeroed in on the disk.

This disk was proof that I had passed the first part of the mage's trial, which involved winning in a sanctioned duel against a fellow initiate using one of the fundamental magics.

"But why…?" I muttered.

The guard didn't respond, but his eyes told me about how stupid he thought I was.

"Oh, right." I said sheepishly as I opened the letter. The first thing that caught my eye was the seal.

"The Dowager Magus…" It all made sense now, at least some of it.

She was the only one left alive with the authority to use a palace guard as a messenger and to veto the council's decisions.

The letter only had a curt message inviting me to tea.

"You have to go, Kellen." As if sensing my hesitation, my father spoke.

He was right, there would be a price to pay if I ignored this.

This wasn't a request, it was a polite order. One I couldn't possibly disobey.

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The guard had led me past the main palace and into a garden filled with exotic flowers.

We followed a path that wound through the gardens, heading deeper and deeper towards who knows where.

Then the guard stopped.

I looked around and caught sight of a modest cottage covered by winding vines of different flowers.

"Uh…so…should I wait here…okay." I swallowed my question as I saw the look of derision in the guard's eyes again.

I walked to the cottage and knocked for a while before going inside.

The interior was lit by the magical lamps my people were fond of, it was bare and looked nothing close to what I expected of the dwelling of the Dowager Magus.

Suddenly I felt a presence come in through the other side of the room and was left dazed.

Her face was partly covered in a black veil, the same color as her finely detailed dress. Her age was obvious at a glance, but sometimes she felt younger. Her presence messed with my mind.

It surprised me how I was just beginning to question how the Clan Prince and his wife managed to stay alive this long, considering it was the same clan prince that fought the war against the Mahdek, the mortal enemies of the Jan'Tep, 300 years ago.

"Is this the courtesy I should expect from the House of Ke?" Her voice was clear, crushing my expectations.

"Forgive me…my Lady..?" I was not aware of the correct term for addressing someone of her status, but I gave the best greeting I could as I bowed my head.

"You will call me Dowager." She said.

"Understood, Dowager." I responded with my head still turned down.

"Raise your head, Kellen." She said, before sitting down on the only chair in the room.

I did as instructed, still feeling awkward.

"What do you think of me, boy?" Huh? Why's she suddenly asking something like that? Is this a trap?

"Uh..I think you're beautiful?" I took the safest path I could.

"I did not summon you here for flattery, I've had my fair share of it." She reprimanded me firmly.

Then why did she summon me?

"Then why did you summon me?" I decided to ask, if she wanted me to be bold, then that was what she would get.

"Questions, albeit not ones as boring as the one you just asked?"

Questions?

What kind of questions would she have for me? I'm just an initiate, a poor one at that.

There must be something I'm missing…wait.

I don't need to overthink this. In this room, there's only someone that needs answers.

Me.

"What do you want me to ask you?" I said.

"Interesting questions, I assume you have a nice number of those?" She was still being vague.

"How are you still alive?" I asked, a little fear of being rude pulling at my mind.

"A boring question. Surely that's not the limit of your curiosity." She seemed to be getting agitated.

I suppose she's right, because I more or less knew she was keeping herself alive with magic. The exact way was beyond me though.

What did she want me to ask? What could someone who undoubtedly had vast amounts of knowledge want from me?

Was it something she couldn't say for herself? Is it about some sort of anomaly?

I recalled the events of yesterday, which should be the time I entered into the Dowager Magus' sight.

Three things stood out to me.

"How did the clan prince die?" I probed.

"Don't play games with me, boy. We both know that's not what I'm interested in."

"Then….who is Ferius Parfax?

And who is Rimuru Tempest?"

As she heard my questions, she smiled.

"Well done, from now on call me Mer'esan." It seems I finally satisfied her, I still don't know why she wanted me to ask that though. I felt like even this part of our conversation was trying to make me realize something deeper.

"Is there something wrong about them?" I asked.

"Well, you could say so. Ferius' status as an Argosi would be the matter of most concern but the second individual temporarily takes priority."

"It's that word again, what's an Argosi?" I didn't really care if she called this question boring as well, I wanted answers.

"Fast talking, card playing busybodies. You could also call them…." I remembered what Ferius told me yesterday when I inquired about her profession.

"Cartographers?" I offered.

"Is that what she told you? Well, I suppose in a sense you could call them that. They're certainly not drawing any geographical maps though."

She fiddled with a nearby lamp before she continued talking.

"The Argosi go wherever a major event is about to take place, and then they paint a card that represents whatever person or concept brought about that event or resolved it. They believe that by doing this and assembling them into a deck, they will be able to predict the flow of history."

"Cards?" My hand reached into my pocket and brought out the deck Ferius had left with me.

Mer'esan's eyes locked onto the cards but lost interest immediately after.

"Those are regular playing cards, no Argosi would leave their true deck with a child. Especially not the discordances." She said.

"What's a discordance?"

Mer'esan glared at me.

It seems she wants me to think. Well, a little common sense told me she probably referred to the card Ferius was allegedly here to paint.

"I want you to get closer to the Argosi woman and figure out what her new card is about." So she was asking me to spy, of course.

Why else would she give me something I so dearly needed?

"Understood. I'll do my best."

"Good, now moving on to the most concerning matter." Her tone suddenly grew darker.

"Rimuru Tempest?"

"Indeed. I fear I can't be too passive or overly aggressive in dealing with this matter."

I didn't need to think much about what was so concerning about that person.

From his apparent immunity to magic, to allegedly being a guest of the Clan Prince and the sudden favorable treatment he was getting from my father, he was very suspicious.

Not to mention his outlandish claims of being able to help me with my magic..

My hands clenched as I remembered our conversation last night.

"I fail to see how I would be useful to you in this regard, Mer'esan." I said.

She leaned deeply into her chair as she sighed.

"That being seems to have some interest in you, you'll be more useful than you think."

Being?

Fear began to seep into my mind as the realization that I might've been dragged into something extremely dangerous dawned on me.

"I think you're mistaken, Mer'esan." I tried to extricate myself from whatever game this ancient woman intended to play, being a pawn wasn't appealing.

Her dark eyes seemed to pierce my soul as they narrowed at me.

"Your thoughts are irrelevant. You will comply with my orders, and I will help you pass the bothersome mage's trials and you can earn your little mage's name."

A mage's name, the sole reward for passing the trials.

Anyone with a mage's name was automatically recognised throughout the Jan'Tep arcanocracy as someone with enough magical ability to be useful.

It was the fine line between acknowledgement as a mage, and disregard as a Sha'Tep.

Danger? Death?

What use was fearing these things if I ended up serving my own peers as a Sha'Tep servant?

Was it even worth it to stay alive at that point?

I steeled my resolve and gazed into Mer'esan's terrifying eyes head on.

"Very good, Kellen."

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I was lying on the roof of Ke'heops' mansion as I eavesdropped on Kellen's conversation with the old woman.

"For all their magic, these people are annoyingly crafty." I said aloud.

[I believe it's actually said magic that influenced them to be this way. I have inspected this world's history and found some rather interesting facts about the Jan'Tep.]

Ciel piped up for the first time in a while.

"Well keep it to yourself. I'll figure it out sooner or later."

[Hmph, not like I would tell you anyway.]

That boy, Kellen. He just couldn't stay out of trouble.

But I guess it's partly my fault….it was still sad though.

Aside from Ferius, everyone that knows that boy has some kind of weird opinion of him or a skewed plan involving him.

I was no exception, albeit not malicious, I did have plans for him.

I got up from my lying position and took an unnecessary deep breath.

"Time to teach the kid some magic." And then I vanished.

Kellen had only walked half the way to his house before I appeared behind him and tapped his shoulder.

To no surprise of mine, he jumped away in fear.

"Yo." I said, the hand I used to scare him now waving in a gesture of friendship and kindness.

[Bully.]

…

"'Yo'? How are you here?" He quickly composed himself before fixing me a with a look of suspicion.

"You kinda look like your dad." I said.

"Don't dodge the question." He retorted with no delay.

"Okay okay. Follow me, it's time we started." I then turned and walked off the road, heading into a forest that was just a few minutes away.

"Hey, wait! That's not an answer!" He shouted after me before inevitably following.

"You'll see." I said.

He huffed and puffed as he struggled to keep up with me, his weak, untempered Jan'Tep body doing him no favors.

A few minutes of walking and we arrived at a clearing that was devoid of intelligent life.

'Well, human intelligent life at least.' I thought as my eyes narrowed at a small figure within the trees.

"Why did you bring me here? My father won't be happy if I don't return soon." Kellen said between deep breaths, his hands leaning on his knees.

"Eh, he'll be fine. As for why I brought you here, did you forget what I said yesterday?" I raised both of my hands in a gesture of confusion.

"You mean your unbelievable statement about teaching me magic? Sure I did, I just choose to ignore nonsense." He shot at me.

"I like the sarcastic spirit kid, you're gonna need it to cope with what I'm gonna put you through."

I smiled at him, he seemed to shiver.

He's probably excited.

[We both know he's not.]

Speak for yourself, heh.

"Okay, first I'll clear up any doubts you have in that limited Jan'Tep brain of yours." I told him as I began to manipulate my magicules.

A strong gust of wind swept through the clearing, spreading out from my feet.

A wave of black flames followed in the same manner, harmlessly passing by the awed boy.

And just like that, I went on to demonstrate my prowess in every element of magic he could recognise.

For Iron, I had conjured formless and invisible clamps to shut his dropped jaw.

"Do you see it now?" I asked.

"But how…? You have no bands, hence no connection to the Oasis…unless…"

He was a smart kid.

"This is all your own strength isn't it? But that's impossible..no human can contain that much power, are you even human?" What he had just seen should have been totally out of the norm.

It wasn't only the mastery of all the disciplines but the sheer power I had put into each spell.

"You're mistaken, Kellen. A human can in fact contain this amount of power, the humans you're aware of just can't." The makeup of humans in this world made it impossible for them to utilize magicules.

I intended to fix that, for Kellen at least.

Of course, I could go the more traditional, logical route and undo all what his parents had done to weaken his talent and potential but where was the fun in that?

I didn't come here to repair what was destroyed.

I wasn't in this place to restore things that had been stolen.

I was here to create chaos.

To create a balance breaker.

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It was too good to be true.

At least, I tried to convince myself it was.

But the proof was right in front of me, terrifyingly potent proof.

He said he would teach me.

He said he could help me.

So maybe…maybe I didn't have to rely on the whims of an ancient ghost to earn a mage's name, maybe I didn't have to be a pawn in her deadly game, maybe I didn't have to be Sha'Tep.

I staggered to my feet, still feeling shaken from the borderline earthquake this seemingly harmless person had unleashed earlier.

"Very good, that wit and determination, I will help you put it to good use."

Yeah, I hope so.

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