Packing for a journey that might kill me took less time than people thought. Most of what kept you alive couldn’t be folded.

  Ragna sat cross?legged on the floor of my guest room with her new club across her knees and two other weapons scattered around her like she was decorating. The morning light came in through the shutters in thin lines, turning the pitch black edge of my axe on the bed into a strip of pale gold.

  “Take this one too,” she said, nudging a spare short club with her toe. “What if mine breaks again?”

  “If that one breaks, we probably broke with it,” I said. “A second won’t help much.”

  She thought about it, then shrugged. “Still bringing it.”

  My own pack lay open on the bed. Inside sat the things Isolde had sent up before dawn, starting with a wooden tray of narrow glass vials full of colored liquid from the royal stores, sealed with wax and labeled in a neat, fussy script. Wound?knitters, antipoisons, a thick green brew that supposedly stopped internal bleeding if you could keep it down, and the more expensive Health Potions which worked magic.

  There were also two spare shirts even though I never wore shirts, a repair kit, flint, and a few coils of cord. Isolde’s little mirror shard sat wrapped in cloth in an inner pocket, cool against my fingers when I checked it.

  “Feels wrong to walk around with this much glass,” I muttered. “If I trip, we’ll smell like an apothecary for a week.”

  “Then don’t trip,” Ragna said. She tied a Valtherian bone charm to the haft of her club, fingers quick. She noticed my gaze and added, “Mother’d say it’s bad luck to see new lands without something of home on your weapon.”

  “It looks cute.”

  “Cute?”

  Someone knocked on the door. Borric pushed it open before I answered, peering in like a man checking a storeroom for rats. Old habits.

  “I come bearing guilt,” he announced.

  “Good morning to you too,” I said.

  He stepped inside and shut the door behind him. The marquis’ coat still looked like a costume on him, but he wore it better than the first time. In one hand he carried a flat wooden box; three small pouches hung from his belt.

  “I meant to go with you,” he said. “All the way to Ethenia. See the Trials, argue prices in a new capital, and meet my daughter after a long time. Then Her Majesty put land and a title on me and ruined everything.”

  “That’s what you get for being useful,” Ragna said.

  He laughed. “Playful surely is one way to word it.”

  He set the box on the table and opened it. Gold marks, silver crescents, and a few square Erebian coins glinted inside.

  “Somehow Her Majesty forgot this when granting us titles. This is the Mercenary Quest payment.” he said. “For the Princess in chains, the Undead King, the Concord mess, and all the other parts no one will fit neatly into a ballad. The obstacles were more than what we agreed upon, so the reward is likewise.”

  “Ah, I forgot about that too,” I checked it. “The purse feels heavy.”

  “Forgive me, but I argued with her saying its too much,” Borric admitted. “She won. So don’t be guilty. Take it and spend it across the continent, but don’t insult my new profession by refusing.”

  “Sure, how much is in here?” I was curious as I kept feeling its weight, making clinking sounds.

  In my free time, I’d sat down and done my calculations about this world’s currency. It was a fun mental exercise, and I’ve kind of reached a decent exchange rate in my head despite the historical troubles. 1 gold coin could roughly allow me $5,000 USD’s worth of lifestyle; for reference, an average bakery shop made 7 gold coins a year, or 700 silver coins.

  So I wondered how much was here, it was pretty heav–

  “There’s 1,000 gold coins,” Borric said. “500 for each of you.”

  I began to cough so hard that Ragna came running, slapping my back to get me stable. What the fuck?! That’s 5 Million Dollars!! My eyes were wide like circles. In just a few month’s journey, how did I make more money than my entire life back on Earth?!

  Ragna looked confused why I was so surprised, but her eyes were bright. “Is that enough to get drunk in three countries?”

  “Yes. But hopefully you’ll see more than taverns,” he said dryly.

  He lifted one of the small pouches from his belt then. It was plain leather on the outside, stitched well, with a thumb?sized patch of something silvery sewn to the inside of the mouth.

  “And this,” he added, “is something new.”

  “I already have a purse, and it's bigger,” I said.

  “This is not a purse,” he said. “It’s a trick I’m rather proud of.”

  He slipped his hand inside. His fingers went past where the bottom should have been, then his wrist, then most of his forearm. The leather didn’t bulge.

  I stared.

  That’s like the famous Storage Ring.

  Ragna scowled. “Borric the Trickster.”

  “My Class unlocked a Skill called [Inventory] recently,” Borric said, rubbing under his nose in a hint of pride. “Very convenient for a merchant like me. Sadly, it's a Skill that only I can use. I was telling Her Majesty about it when she had an idea. The Mirror Sovereign Class is truly powerful, it can twist space in strange ways by reflecting. Between the two, and more failed attempts than I care to admit, we learned how to make… smaller doors. I call this Spatial Pouch!”

  He drew his arm back out and snapped his fingers. The reflective patch inside shimmered once and stilled.

  “Can you make a Ring?” I quickly asked. “Like the gem of the ring will have enough space to house an entire ship?”

  Borric rubbed the back of his head. “Erm, that’ll be a little difficult for now, but theoretically it could be possible.”

  Yes! I looked forward to that day.

  He went on, “It’s not that big yet. No wagons. But clothes, tools, food, and a reasonable amount of gear? It will hold more than it looks like it should. It should also keep items like glass from clattering and shattering. If this works on the road and we can copy it safely, Thalassaria will not lack trade for a long time. It’s a cash cow!”

  I took the pouch and pushed my fingers past the patch. The inside went cold and smooth and then opened up in a way that didn’t match what my eyes saw. It was a little like poking the Murmuring Glass with a stick and not dying.

  “No weight change?” I asked.

  “A little, if you fill it,” he said. “But not much more than a regular purse. Try it.”

  I pulled my pack closer, emptied shirts, rope, food, and half the potions into the pouch one by one. They slipped away and didn’t reappear. When I tied the string and lifted it, it hardly weighed more than before.

  Only the axe stayed on my back.

  “That’s cheating,” Ragna said at once. “Give me one too.”

  Borric handed her a second pouch and tossed a third to me. “One each,” he said. “Don’t set them on fire, don’t cut the lining, and don’t tell every mage you meet how they work. If this ever goes to market, I’d at least like to be the first man to charge too much for them.”

  Ragna stuffed both spare clubs, three charms, and what looked like a day’s worth of snacks into hers and laughed when none of it came back out.

  “I’m a trickster too!” she said. “I like it.”

  Borric’s expression softened as he watched us.

  “Ah, how fun you two are. I really don’t want to stay and play noble…” he said. “But I have to. I must fix Millhaven, count ships and sacks, and make sure the gold we earned doesn’t vanish the moment our back is turned. Someone has to.”

  “You’re good at that,” I said. “Borric, truly, I can rest assured knowing Isolde has someone like you helping her manage the kingdom. You have my thanks.”

  “I try,” he said. He hesitated, then took a plain folded note from his inside pocket. No guild seal, just a small star pressed into the wax.

  “This one is for Zerina,” he said, holding it out. “If the Trials draw as many fools as last time, there’s a chance she’ll be there. If you see her, give her this.”

  I took the letter carefully. The weight on it wasn’t in the paper.

  “I can’t promise,” I said.

  “I know,” he smiled at my blunt words. “But if you do, tell her I’m at least attempting not to make a complete fool of myself as a Marquis. Don’t say ‘respectable.’ She won’t believe that word from anyone.”

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  “That I can do,” I laughed.

  He nodded once. “You gave this place a real chance, Thorvyn,” his voice held emotions. “Whatever happens out there, that won’t change.”

  All his praise seemed to bother Ragna. “That’s enough. Any more and he’ll start thinking he did something noble.”

  “We can’t have that,” Borric began to laugh louder. “I’ll see you when you come back richer and more snarky, Ragna.”

  Ragna clapped his shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. He muttered something about barbarians and left with his box under his arm. When the door shut, the room felt emptier and clearer. Our packs were down to pouches and steel. That was all right. Anything else we needed we’d take from the road.

  “Ready?” Ragna asked.

  “No. We’re going anyway.”

  She grinned. “Good answer.”

  ****

  The Teleportation Hall sat beneath the oldest stones of Solstara, where Erebian hands had worked long before Thalassaria called itself a kingdom. The corridor leading down to it had pillars carved with tight, geometric patterns; someone had added wave motifs later, trying to soften them and not quite succeeding.

  Inside, the hall was round and high. A domed ceiling painted with sailing ships and caravans watched from above in faded colors. The floor was taken up by a circular array of sigils inlaid with dull metal, old Erebian runes along the outer ring and newer Thalassarian script etched between them like a second language sharing the same sentence.

  Mages and engineers in blue and white moved along the edge, placing hands on junctions, murmuring to one another, sending thin sparks along the lines. The air thrummed with contained power, and smelled of warmed stone, oil, and a bit of incense someone had burned earlier in front of a minor Erebian demi-god of sun in the corner.

  The sigil pattern had the same sort of logic as the Murmuring Glass’s cracks, only this time the design was intentional.

  Isolde stood near the circle’s edge with the Crown on and her Mirror staff resting lightly in one hand. Valtor was to her right with his sword Tidebreaker at his hip; Marius to her left with his usual stack of papers. Yasafina waited off to the side with two knights and the Erebian circle?master. Borric had drifted into a small cluster of nobles near a pillar, where he looked like a man who’d rather be checking ledgers, his eyes emotional.

  A mage gestured us forward. Ragna and I stepped into the circle. The stone was warmer under our boots where the rune?lines met.

  “Don’t step out once we begin,” the circle?master warned. “You won’t like it.”

  “I’m attached to all my limbs,” I joked. “We’ll stay put.”

  Isolde took one step closer.

  “Thorvyn,” she called. “Ragna.”

  The murmurs around the hall faded without her having to raise her voice.

  “You’ve done more for Thalassaria than I ever expected when I met you in Seagard, for that you have my and all my subjects’ thanks,” she began a speech, even though there was no reason for it. “Most mercenaries would have taken the reward and gone home. Instead, you go west. For your mother. For the Trials. For whatever else the universe decides to drop on your head.”

  A couple of nobles found her parting speech too much, scowling. That annoyed me, but I was certain she sensed it better than I did. I had a feeling they wouldn’t enjoy their future royal activities.

  “This journey is yours,” she went on. “Valtherian Pilgrimage. A few nobles want you to actively carry our kingdom’s name into the outer world, given you hold the title of my Stormblade, but please don’t listen to those whispers. This kingdom is my duty, not yours. You’re my guest, and you’re my friend, and you’ve already done far too much.”

  That line got a few looks, but she didn’t flinch.

  “But if, while you are there, you find reason to speak in my name,” she added, eyes on me now, “you have my permission. Please use your own judgment, you’re better at that than I am. Don’t feel bound to ask ‘what would Queen Isolde do’ before speaking.”

  “Good,” I said, knowing very well the risk she was carrying by announcing a barbarian had better judgment than her. Title and crowns aside, she really was a stupid girl in love. “What Isolde would do usually involves paperwork.”

  Her mouth twitched. “Exactly.”

  She touched the staff to the outer ring. Light climbed up along the carvings, rune by rune. The circle began to glow in a slow, turning pattern.

  “For those who don’t know Valtherian customs,” she said to the hall, “A pilgrimage is not exile. It’s a test. He goes to make his name so loud that even old gods turn their heads. Then, if we are lucky, he comes back to boast at us.”

  A few people laughed. Others looked at me as if trying to measure what that “if” meant.

  Marius stepped forward to the edge of the circle and held out an envelope sealed with a coiled serpent wrapped around a trident.

  “If things become… complicated in any way you can’t handle,” he said, “You should try finding anyone from the Leviathan Information Guild and give them this. They owe me favors they regret. They will read it, even if they complain.”

  “Leviathan,” I said. “You really do have tentacles everywhere.”

  “Branches,” he corrected. “But the image is apt.”

  I took the letter.

  Valtor came next.

  “I dislike goodbyes, it’s too bittersweet for my drunkard mind. But I must warn you about this, considering that…” he leaned over and whispered, “You might give me a nephew in the future.”

  I cleared my throat. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  He laughed and began, “Ethenia loves strict rules. Their own, mostly. Duels with terms, contracts with loopholes, old oaths everyone quotes when they’re convenient. They’ll smile and quote friendship while they measure your neck for a collar. Don’t mistake either for softness.”

  “I don’t plan to let anyone collar me,” I said.

  “You say that now,” he said. “Say it later too.”

  He gave a short nod and stepped back.

  Yasafina didn’t come as close. She remained outside the ring. “I can’t teach you how to fight,” she said. “But I can tell you this. The Heavenly Demon was born in Ethenia, and some claim he’s left records of his legendary martial arts here and there. If you’re lucky and find any, don’t be a barbarian and scoff at it. Learn.”

  “Steal techniques,” I said. “Got it.”

  “And…” she hesitated, then added in a lower voice, “you’re doing well, Valterian. Don’t let them polish you so smooth you stop catching on things.”

  “That sounds painful,” I said. No, it sounded like herself. I recalled how she’d judged Ragna and I the first time we met, suggesting we train like knights, but after everything she’d seen us do, she’d changed her mind. Perhaps there were regrets in her mind for having given up on her beastly nature and picking a sword?

  “It is,” she said. “Avoid it.”

  I wondered how she’d be in a year from now on.

  The circle?master glanced at Isolde and lifted a hand. The hum under our feet grew a fraction louder.

  Isolde tightened her grip on the staff.

  “Ah, before you go,” I suddenly said, catching her eye, “there’s someone I forgot to say goodbye to. Finn, that little kid. Tell him I survived. And that I still expect him to build something bigger and worse than the last workshop.”

  Her expression softened. “You should have gone yourself,” she said.

  “I’ll see him again,” I said. “Someday. This is for him.”

  I fished a small wooden plaque from my pouch and held it up. I’d carved the old Valtherian tribal mark into it last night when sleep refused to come.

  “Give him this,” I said. “Tell him Valtherians don’t forget their promises, and a failed promise is a debt that has to be paid for eternity.”

  She took it carefully, like it was worth more than wood.

  “I will,” she said.

  She stepped back into place.

  “Thorvyn Valteria,” she called, staff lifting.

  “Yes, Your Majesty?” I answered.

  “I’ll be waiting for your return,” she said with a scowl. It was both a threat and an expectation.

  Ragna cupped her hands. “You’d better wait for mine too!” she yelled. “He’s hopeless without me!”

  A ripple of laughter ran around the hall, then died as the last rune flared. Light rose in a circle around us.

  The world pulled away.

  Lines of power ran up from the floor over my boots and legs, drawing us up like ink strokes. My Dragon’s Eye snapped open on its own; the Veil Piercing aspect of it suddenly scraped at something thin.

  For a breath, Solstara blurred and other places slid in over it. A dark chamber of black rock and blue witchfire where robed silhouettes watched a smaller circle, then an open platform above a harbor crammed with ships I didn’t recognize. A sunken arena with stone stands and sand scoured in patterns only old blood made.

  High above all of it, on a sky that was not this one, a city hung like a mirage where clouds were born into its pounds.

  Then the floor vanished.

  ****

  We hit stone again.

  The air was dry and hot on my tongue, full of spice, dust, and the roar of a city just out of sight. We stood on another circle etched into darker rock, in a smaller hall whose walls were crowded with Erebian script and sunburst banners. Voices in another tongue drifted in through an open archway.

  A thin man in circle?master robes hurried forward, eyes going from our weapons to the Thalassarian seal at my belt.

  “You are the guests from Solstara?” he spoke slowly.

  “Yes,” I said, holding out the seal.

  He glanced at it and nodded once. “The western node is ready. We were told to send you through immediately. Please remain within the ring.”

  He turned and snapped orders; his mages moved with tired efficiency. A different pattern lit under our boots. The hum changed pitch. For a second, I thought of Heraclitus again. No man steps in the same river twice, he’d said. Nobody had warned me about circles.

  “Different air,” Ragna noted quietly. “Different noise.”

  “We’ll listen properly on the way back,” I said.

  Light rose again.

  When it faded this time, cold bit at my cheeks.

  We stood on a stone platform cut into the side of a mountain, the circle ringed by a low wall. Beyond it, the world dropped away into sharp air and distance.

  A line of dark peaks marched north and south, snow on their heads. West of them, land rolled out under a wide, clear sky. Hills and plains and, far off, faint silver threads that might have been rivers or roads caught the light.

  Erebian mages stood well back. None of them came forward to talk. That was fine. We weren’t here for them.

  Ragna walked to the wall and leaned on it, hair whipping in the thin wind.

  “Big,” she said. “Bigger than Thalassaria.”

  “Older, too, remember?” I asked. “This is exciting.”

  As if stirred by the fact that we were out of Thalassaria, the System pinged. White letters snapped into being in front of my eyes, and the words made my eyes widen. I’d never seen this before.

  [You have completed the Hidden Tutorial Quest.]

  [Objective: Save Thalassaria From Collapse.]

  [Status: Complete.]

  [You leave behind a kingdom on the rise. There’s no physical reward for this achievement, but there’s something greater. An opportunity.]

  Another pulse followed, sharp. The wording of this one reminded me of Lady Nezehra, and when she’d asked me if I had this exact thing. I felt the world slow.

  [You are qualified for a World?Class Quest.]

  °°°°°°

  Main Quest: Face the Perpetual System’s Arrival as a Divinity.

  Details: There exist countless universes, with billions of Gods, all under the one adjudication of the Perpetual System. This world, Vear'thia, was blessed with the seed of an isolated System to mature it properly.

  The Perpetual System is coming to connect soon, and Outer Gods fight to claim Vear'thia before that, hoping to turn the new world into one of their numbered province and profit from the connection. The current Local Gods, save for one, aren’t strong enough to stop the outsiders.

  The System hopes for stronger allies. You are an anomaly the System could not erase. That makes you a New God candidate.

  Primary Objective: Achieve godhood before the Perpetual System fully connects. Face the Outer Gods and protect your universe.

  Reward: Instant promotion to [Local Primordial God].

  Failure Penalty: This universe becomes a numbered province. All native Systems and free anomalies are overwritten, you are deleted, the Outer Gods rule.]

  °°°°°°

  The text burned in front of my eyes for a long time.

  “Thorvyn? Why are you dazed?”

  Goddamit, why me?

  .

  .

  .

  THE END, BOOK 1.

  That concludes Book 1 of Barbarian Awakening!! With 65 Chapters and 210k words. That’s a big one!!

  I plan to release this on Amazon in two months or so, let’s pray it does as good as Martial Arts vs Magic did. If you guys have any small or big complaints, critiques, ideas, anything for Book 1, feel free to comment. It’d help me recognize any problems that might need editing.

  Feel free to share any ideas/desires you have for Book 2 too!!

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