I had just seen the young woman out and was six steps down the stairwell when I heard her scream. I stopped mid-step, and my foot hovered in the air as I considered my next course of action. Of course, I should go see what she was screaming about. Yet, in my heart, I simply wanted to keep walking down the stairwell to reach the laboratory I hadn’t set foot inside for several weeks. It called to me, as new ideas for experiments swirled in the back of my mind, like words on the tip of my tongue. I knew if I turned around, those vague thoughts might never solidify into proper ideas. I closed my eyes and tried to force them up, but those nascent ideas slipped through my fingers. With a heavy sigh, I turned myself around and went back up my staircase to see what the woman’s scream was about. If it was over something silly, like a rat, I would be very upset. Yet, when I opened the door and walked out onto the bridge over my moat, I only saw her standing still. One hand covered her open mouth, and her terrified expression was cast towards the skies. When I followed her gaze, I saw what she did. Thousands upon thousands of wyverns were flying over the tower, headed northeast. Seeing monsters in those numbers would have once terrified me as well if I hadn’t spent time floating above an ocean of hydra. Not that I wasn’t wary, I was. It would only take a small change in their direction to go from flying overhead to landing around my tower, and I had few magical safeguards against powerful foes in such numbers. No, I wasn’t frightened at all, I realized as I sneered upwards. Wary? Yes. Cautious? Yes. Annoyed at the interruption in my day? Very much so. I turned and walked back inside my tower and headed upstairs towards the roof for a better view. Guards ran up and down past me, each carrying armfuls of bows or quivers of arrows. Philipe stepped forward to walk by my side on the second floor, awakened by the commotion. At the top of the stairwell, six different guards whispered to each other as they looked out onto the rooftop. I could see and hear their fear clearly as they refused to take the final step that would place them outside the tower, but they moved aside when they saw me. Given that I had an audience around me now, I stepped forward onto the rooftop with dignity and grace, rather than the irritated pace I had carried myself up the stairs with. There were two guards, a man and a woman, already outside on the rooftop, both with bows readied but not drawn. I ignored their salute and relieved faces as I walked towards the center of my rooftop and beheld the spectacle above me. There were so many wyverns in the air that they made the sunny morning feel overcast. Most were fourth-tier monsters, but there were hundreds of fifth-tier greater wyverns mixed in. I never much cared for the look of the things. They lacked the elegance of drakes. I had once attempted to correct the illustrations used in the adventurers’ guild and around the capital. Some famed artist had drawn them to appear as flying drakes with a scorpion’s tail, which was a misrepresentation at best. The things' bodies were shaped closer to that of a hornet’s, with a thick, bulbous tail. It was absurd that the rendering had become so widespread, especially as it risked the lives of adventurers hired to slay the monsters. Unfortunately, I wasn’t successful at the time, owing to the death of the artist. My attempts at fixing a misconception came across as an attempt to slander a dead man’s name, and no number of reasonable arguments would even be heard on the matter. Just thinking over that time pushed my annoyance with the wyverns even further, and I couldn’t help but frown. Today was to be my day for experiments! I wouldn’t get many more days like this until my responsibilities with the Pestilence were completed, and those seemed to grow greater by the week. Not that this was anyone’s fault but my own. Soon, the guards and my assistants braved the rooftop to stand near me. I considered casting more wards on the tower and village below, but the wyverns showed no interest in us. I began considering sending one to fetch wine while I watched. Guarding against the possibility of attack wasn’t the most thrilling of experiences. Yet as I was about to open voice my request, the swarm shifted. In the very center of it flew a wyvern larger than the rest. Its wings spread at least three times as far as the others and beat much more slowly than the rest. Curious, I cast an [Analyze] spell and was dumbfounded by the results. This beast, an [Ancient Greater Wyvern], was a sixth-tier monster! Even from the distance, I could see its head tilt towards me, and an all too intelligent eye met my gaze. I couldn’t help but shiver with fear and excitement. I had traveled across Sena and Mirktal and Tervan for years in war. I adventured and fought numerous beasts and monsters. I had studied tomes of secret and forbidden knowledge and called upon the powers of the elemental planes. In all of my experience, I had never heard a word or seen proof of any being beyond the fifth-tier. I had suspicions, of course. Yet, those suspicions included suppositions that it was the tier of gods and planar rulers. The tier of dragons now gone. Yet, here before me, was proof that this tier existed. That the world was still far greater than I knew. And if sixth-tier monsters existed, then it meant something even more important to me. Something that I knew would drive me forward for decades to come. If monsters existed at that tier, mortal monsters, then there must also be mortal magic. What outlandish new spells would I find? What concepts of magic and what complexities in spellforms could I learn? I found myself elated at the prospects and filled with a joy I hadn’t felt in years. I couldn’t help but laugh. The laughter erupted out of me in deep, uncontrollable booms. I didn’t care what those around me thought, nor what expressions they made. I didn’t care that rumors of me laughing beneath a swarm of deadly monsters might find their way back to the king and nobility. No, I cared some. I just didn’t care enough to stop myself. The thrill of hope and potential was burning inside my mind for the first time in more than a century, and that feeling was worth more than any amount of coin, or titles, or land.