“Oy,” David said, letting out a nervous breath of air. “We’d better make sure the King doesn’t die, then.”

  “What do we have to do?” Haydith asked.

  “I’m going to serve as bait and draw the dragon to the explosive barrels. Just before it reaches me, Haydith will activate [Time Stop], and we’ll all escape. Simple.”

  “Sure,” David said, his voice filled with doubt, “that will allow Haydith to escape, but what about you? How are you going to escape?”

  “I’ll be under the effects of the [Fly] spell, so I’ll be immune to [Time Stop],” I said.

  “Is that how it works? Why?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said truthfully. Special relativity was a topic for another time. I reached into one of my many pockets and withdrew a small glass vial. “Get ready. The mission starts in two minutes.” Grimacing, I lifted the vial to my lips and took a deep swig.

  “Is that a mana potion?” David asked.

  “Where should I be when…?” Haydith asked, but she was interrupted by my sudden, involuntary utterance.

  I groaned in pain and fell to one knee as the mana potion began circulating through my system. Pain wracked my whole body as all of my mana pathways were violently torn open, and the mana in the air began flowing into my body. I could actually feel it as raw mana came in through my skin and filtered through my muscles and organs until it eventually reached my lower core. It felt like I was being burned alive. The burning sensation began in my skin and moved inward. I looked at my skin several times to make sure that it wasn’t actually burning off. The process only took thirty seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

  “Are you okay?” Haydith asked over my groans of pain.

  “Mana potions do that,” David said with a shrug. “He’ll be fine in a few seconds.”

  The pain stopped, and I was able to regain control of my body once more. “I hear it’s worse the more mana you have.”

  “That’s possible,” David said, a faint smirk on his face. “It’s also possible that the people with the most mana are huge pansies. How much mana do you have anyway, old timer?”

  “Last time I checked, I was at about four-sixty,” I said, stretching my shoulders in an attempt to draw my attention away from the ache pervading my whole body.

  David whistled out of the corner of his mouth. “Wow, I still haven’t broken a hundred.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Hmm?” I grunted, looking up at David. “That seems low. What’s your class and level?”

  “I’m a level 45 Spellblade,” David said quickly.

  “You’re a Spellblade? At your level, you should have around two hundred mana.”

  It was nearly unheard of for a B-Tier to have less than a hundred mana. Most amateur mages reached that level after a year of training. It must have had something to do with the way that David was transported to this world. Based on his age, he must have still been in his original body.

  I suddenly realized something. Unlike Haydith and me, the bodies of Transmigrators had spent most of their existence in a world without mana. It was only natural that their mana reserves would be diminished. This fact could be applied to the Blue Mage. If he was a Transmigrator, then his mana reserves would be similarly diminished. Silently, I filed that fact away for later.

  “It must be because that’s your original body,” I said.

  “I see,” David said, his brow furrowing. “That seems a bit unfair.”

  I shrugged. “Okay. Haydith, you stay here until I come back with the dragon. Once you’ve stopped time, come to me, and I’ll use [Gust] to blow us both into the sky.”

  “What should I be doing?” David asked. “It sounds like I’m not necessary for your plan.”

  “Do you know the [Fly] spell?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but I only have enough mana left in the tank to use it for a minute or two.”

  I reached into my pocket and handed David a mana potion. “Use this if you need it. I want you to stay with Haydith and protect her if anything goes wrong. Activate [Fly] when I come close with the dragon and escape the blast range in stopped time.”

  David looked at the mana potion as if he could destroy it with a look alone. With a sigh, he downed the mana potion before saying, “Go. I’ll be ready for a fight by the time you get back.”

  With two flicks of my wand, I flew high up into the air. Once I left the safety of Etron’s many stone buildings, I was struck by a gripping - almost supernatural - anxiety. I was suddenly very aware that the only creatures up in the air above Etron were me and a dragon that could kill me with very little effort.

  As I looked at the dragon, it suddenly froze in place. I looked around, and, for more than five seconds, I remained in stopped time. It was too early for Haydith to be using her talent. After a moment, I realized that it was most likely either Theophrastus or Erasmus that had arrested the flow of time.

  The eerie sheen of stopped time disappeared from my vision, and I began to approach the dragon. As I approached, time stopped several more times. By my estimation, nearly half of my flight was spent in temporal stasis.

  This was a bad sign to say the least. It was likely that King Theophrastus or Prince Erasmus were engaged in battle against something that couldn’t be dispatched with a single use of [Time Stop]. Could this mean that the Blue Mage was fighting one of them? I suspected that, one way or another, a member of the royal family was fighting an opponent who knew how to counter their noble talent.

  Two motes of Hellfire struck the black dragon as soon as I got close enough. The black dragon, a pillar of smoke rising from its maw, turned its serpent-like head in my direction. In those monstrous eyes, I saw no intelligence. I saw no desire, no ambition, no hunger. What I did see, however, was pride. Somehow, this creature with the intelligence of a sheep had evolved the ability to feel pride, and I had just challenged that pride.