Upon returning to the real world, Dallion had enough time to catch up to Vend and the rest. After a few minutes of hesitation, he did just that. The group had engaged in a discussion about areas and area guardians with Veil sharing his experience and Vend giving out a few pointers. Gloria tagging along a few steps behind. Dallion could see—thanks to his music skills—that the conversation was boring her. He could also see that something was worrying her.

“Not the most organized job,” he Dallion said with a smile. “Don’t worry, they’re usually better than this.”

“Oh, I’m used to it.” The girl put up a brave front. It was impressive how good an actor she was. Without Dallion’s abilities, he would never have suspected that her facade was fake. “Remember the time I dragged you to fight the sand dragon?”

“Dragged wasn’t the term I’d use.”

Back then, Dallion had no idea if he could trust her, yet had gone along nonetheless. It turned out to be the good move that eventually led to his victory over the village chief—a victory that seemed incredibly fortunate now. It was tempting to say that those were simpler times, but given how little Dallion knew about anything, it was the most confusing and complicated time of his life. Still, there were a lot fewer things for him to worry about… or so he thought.

“You were right about the cities,” Gloria went on. “It’s not a bad place.”

“Told you.” Dallion winked. “And it has nothing to do with you getting loads of attention here, eh?”

“Please.” Gloria held her chin high. “I’ve always been getting a lot of attention. But you’re right. It’s nice to have this sort of attention. Here, I’m just a girl with pure blond hair that got an invitation for a theatre troupe. Back home…”

Dallion nodded. Back home, both in Dherma and on Earth, he had never had that problem. Maybe college would have been different, although that’s what he said about high school and that didn’t turn out as expected.

“Give it a while. With the village being a level three, you’ll have lots of new people showing up. Settlers, merchants, artisans. Maybe you’ll have your very own awakened guild.”

“You always dreamed big. I doubt it, though. A level three village is still a village, and we can’t level it up to a town.”

“You will.” When you become a double digit, you’ll defeat your doubts and make it happen, Dallion thought.

The crowds of people staring at them were less on the way back. The rumors that the noble had returned to her home had spread, making the majority of onlookers return to their everyday lives. There would still be the occasional comment about the clothes, mostly between children and their parents, but the spectacle was largely over.

Reaching the guild, Dallion and Gloria rushed downstairs in search of their old clothes. Veil, on the other hand, continued with his conversations. For whatever reason he wasn’t bothered by the clothes, even went as far as to ask Estezol whether he could keep them. Much to his disappointment, the outfit was deemed guild property, although the short, bearded man promised he’d speak with the guild forgers if something could be arranged on the matter.

As for Vend, he disappeared upstairs to report on the task.

I’m never wearing silver again, Dallion thought as he carefully removed his attire. Damaging it would end up getting him into a whole lot of trouble.

Nil, any idea where Vend is? Dallion asked.

In a meeting with my original, March, and a few others, the echo replied. Seems like he’s getting a bit of praise. Poor boy, he never was one to handle that.

In what sense? Dallion finally peeled off the trousers from his legs and grabbed his own pair. Putting it back on felt as if he had walked into a cloud of fluff.

The boy has some baggage. Whenever he gets too many compliments, he starts worrying that something bad is about to happen. Anyway, that’s a story for another time. He’s mentioned your involvement, if that’s what you’re worried about.

That’s not it. I just wanted to ask him about some training.

I see… the echo hesitated. Might not be the best time for that.

There will always be an excuse. Dallion folded his silver shirt and put it on the wooden seat. Then he grabbed his own. Quite nice of the guild to keep his things here. To be honest, he was almost impressed that no one had taken them. Back on Earth, he had lost things after forgetting them in class unattended for fifteen minutes. Apparently, guild ties ran deep. I’ll just ask him. At worst, he’ll say no.

The echo didn’t reply. After finishing getting into his old clothes, Dallion rushed out and up the staircase. Passing the lobby, he continued up.

I really don’t think it’s a good idea to do that now, dear boy, Nil said as Dallion reached the guild master’s floor. It has been a rather stressful day for—

Before he could finish, one of the doors on the floor swung open and Vend emerged. His expression and demeanor was the same as ever, but Dallion could see the hurt that vibrated through him. One would almost say that he had failed at the last job, not succeeded.

“Yes, Dal?” Vend immediately asked upon seeing him.

“I want you to teach me more about splitting,” Dallion said, and instantly regretted it. His stubbornness had played a nasty joke on him once again. He should have listened to Nil on this one. “Doesn’t have to be right away,” he added after a few seconds. “I just think that if—”

“No, it’s fine.” The elite suppressed a smile. “I didn’t have anything to do, anyway.”

To Dallion’s surprise, he seemed like he was telling the truth. What was more, Vend seemed somewhat relieved by the idea, or rather he saw it as an excuse to take his mind off something else. Without warning, he grabbed Dallion’s hand.

SPHERE ITEM AWAKENING

In the blink of an eye Dallion found himself in the grey block of a room. There were no doors or windows, although there were a series of stone seats on the sides, as well as a black square carpet covering the middle of the floor.

“Sorry about that.” Vend went to the nearest seat and collapsed inside. It was only here that Dallion could see how exhausted the elite really were. In the real world, even the music skills had hidden the fact. In theory, that was supposed to be impossible, but then Dallion remembered what his mentor had said about splitting—it provided choices. One of those choices could well have been no one noticing how tired he really was. The theory was a stretch, but with someone like Vend, one never knew.

“Long day?” Dallion asked, taking a seat nearby.

“The usual nonsense. It has nothing to do with the job we did. Sometimes life is just full of turns and there aren’t enough splits to straighten it out.”

“Is it about Arthurows?”

The silence was palpable. It had been a while since anyone had voiced that name. Uttering it now left a bitter taste in Dallion’s mouth.

“No,” Vend said firmly, eyes still closed. “Other guild matters. Nothing to do with you.” There was a slight pause. “Or your friends.”

Normally, Dallion wouldn’t have considered Veil or Gloria capable of getting in trouble in a city this size. Even with the limiting echo gone, the fear that their grandfather had instilled from cities was sure to keep them on their toes. However, having Vend be so firm about it made Dallion wonder.

“Why should they be in trouble?”

“You don’t know much, do you?” Vend sighed. “I guess you’ll find out sooner or later. Better from me that hearing about it on the street. Pure blonds are star-touched.”

The notion came as a shock.

Nil, is that true? Dallion asked.

No, it isn’t. The echo sounded annoyed. That’s nothing more than a superstition that people keep repeating without thinking it through. If that were really the case, the Order would have intervened. The actual myth goes that the stars tried to snatch the first purebloods, but were stopped by the moons in the nick of time. As a reminder, the hair of all those who were saved became pale white, like sunlight through the mist. That was so that everyone else would remember that while the temptations of the Stars are everywhere, the Moons are also there to protect us. All blonds are said to have originated from that event, although it is rare for any to be born pure blond.

And you couldn’t have told me before? Dallion felt anger form within his chest.

So you can come to the wrong conclusion, like Vend? Pure blonds are a rarity that some people find exotic. That’s it. Everything else is baseless speculation. They aren’t cursed, not are they saviors, they just are.

Saviors?

Clearly, there was more to the story, but Nil was unlikely to elaborate. If anything, the echo was annoyed he had to share as much as he had. And Vend, on the other hand, had no intention of talking on the matter at all.

“So what do you want to know about splitting?” the elite asked. “I’ve seen you do it, so I know you’re capable of that.”

It was so tempting to ask more about this whole blondness thing, but Dallion held his tongue. Only three things. He had to focus on only three things. Anything else he’d only be mindful of.

“You didn’t tell us all there was,” Dallion said.

“You could tell?”

“It sounded too simple. If I could understand it from one go, there had to be more.”

Vend sat up, then stared at Dallion for five full seconds.

“Either you’re really smart or incredibly stupid. One of these days I’ll figure it out. Until then, I guess I’ll tell you a trick or two.” Vend then stood up. “You been improving your training dagger?”

“Sure have.” Dallion summoned the weapon. After so many improvements, the dagger had become bronze. He was rather pleased with it, even if he felt he could have boosted it by another level or two.

“Level seven?” Vend asked, at which Dallion nodded. “Alright, I want you to split and attack me.”

“That might be slightly difficult. My head’s still ringing from the splitting I did a while back.”

“Let it keep ringing. Do you want to learn something or not?”

Taking a deep breath, Dallion focused as much as he could, finally creating two instances of himself. The moment he did, he charged forward. In one case, he aimed high with a circular arc attack aimed at Vend’s chest. The other instance went for the elite’s left leg. At that point, Vend also broke into instances. Dallion saw him block each of the attacks, disarming him in one case.

Having no choice, Dallion went with the lesser of two bad situations, allowing himself to be blocked. To his surprise, not only did Vend stop the attack, but pulled the stiletto out of his hand in a surprise counterattack.

The demonstration over, Vend then took a step back, leaving Dallion disarmed and very much in disbelief.

“You weren’t supposed to take that,” Dallion said, still trying to figure out what had just happened. “I chose the instance in which you blocked.”

“You probably did. And I chose to create an instance of that instance.” Cold determination flashed in his eyes, after which he returned Dallion his dagger. “Just because you created instances doesn’t mean I couldn’t create more.”

“You split into twice as many instances…” That was a nasty trick. No wonder Dallion had lost. It was like taking a knife to a gunfight.

“The number doesn’t matter. It’s more a case of timing. When I saw you split in two instances, I treated each of them as a normal attack. I could have split twice, or more. The important thing is to do it once you were done. Any earlier and I wouldn’t have anything to react to.”

Dallion had often heard the term “three-dimensional chess.” This was the closest thing to it he could imagine, only it was far more complicated.

“So, my solution would have been to create even more instances and trick your instances?” Dallion asked. His head was hurting just imagining it.

“That’s one solution. Again, you have to find the right moment. You didn’t see me split, did you?”

Dallion shook his head.

“First you need to see it, then you can react. The simplest way is to rely on brute force and double the instances. At one point someone will give in and the winner will choose the instance to their advantage. However, that only works if you have double the mind level of your opponent. To be able to fight with an equal or lower level, you have to be good at refreshing.”

“Refreshing?”

“Our encounter just now. You saw that I didn’t disarm you in one instance, so you chose it. However, that was also planned on my part. The moment I saw your preference, I redid one of my instances. In your mind, the outcome was already predetermined, so you were going through the motions. It wasn’t. In order to catch the change, the correct thing was to end the instances and split again.”

Dallion stared blankly.

“Raise your hands,” the elite said. “Hands shoulder height, palms towards me.”

Dallion obeyed.

“Each hand is an instance. The moment you create the instance I can see them, and can react accordingly.” Vend summoned two knives and pointed each at one of Dallion’s hands. “Now, since you can’t, in order for you to evade my attacks, you can do only one thing—move your hands.”

Dallion did so, slowly. Vend continued moving his knives forward, towards the places where Dallion’s hands had been.

“Still two instances,” the elite said as the knives missed Dallion’s hands. “However, since I didn’t refresh the instances, I’m doomed to miss.”

“But what if you create two new instances to aim at my hands again?” Dallion asked.

“That’s called instance dancing. And the person who does it better, is likely to win every time.”