The next few days passed like a blur. The morning Council Meetings were getting longer and more complicated, as Lester and Elvira started to deliver ever growing reports of their own.

  The Head Merchant cooperated closely with Treasurer Johan Gruber as the pair meticulously tracked each and every property that Varre took over in the capital. Each of his royal relatives had their own manor inside the city, often replete with additional stables or warehouses for their goods closer to the city gates. At several occasions, the king was invited to visit the buildings, as the two financial experts estimated their worth.

  By this point, Varre was no stranger to luxury. Though he became a king just this week, he had been a duke for months since his arrival in this world. He lived in a mansion of his own and was being attended to by a team of servants at every step. Still, he had to admit that his relatives lived impressive lives of their own.

  The manors he visited were all located in the best areas of the noble district. Each one had multiple floors, tens of rooms, and sizeable gardens to boot. At the very least, they were worth thousands of thalars each. Perhaps even tens of thousands. And that’s just the buildings.

  Each mansion was filled with expensive furniture, artwork, and jewelry. They couldn’t be liquidated as quickly as the precious metals and gems Lester had already accounted for, but Varre still recommended selling some of these collections.

  At first, the Treasurer was appalled at this suggestion. He still believed that the king should distribute most of his inheritance to other nobles to gain their loyalty. His argument had wide support on the Council. Every one of the original advisors, who still served in their roles since Mikkel’s murder, agreed. Only Lester trusted Varre’s judgement, while Elvira remained neutral. She felt too new in her role to offer any meaningful contribution to the discussion.

  After lengthy talks, Marna finally offered a compromise. For now, the king should still keep all of the buildings, but he could begin selling some of the artwork and furniture. He should keep the best pieces for himself, but as she put it, ‘once he had finally changed his mind and chose the reasonable option of distributing his newfound wealth, no one would miss these items’.

  Varre agreed, if only to end this endless debate. While he understood the need for an additional house or two inside the city, even if only intended for guests, he did not need dozens of lavishly decorated beds or cupboards.

  As high ranking nobles, many of his relatives also left top notch weapons and armors behind. While the weapons could be reused, the armors were custom made and would be even harder to sell than furniture. Still, the king ordered his Head Merchant to begin looking.

  As for Elvira, she was eager to get started on her duties. She meticulously catalogued the laboratory’s entire inventory, and did some redecorating. While the castle workers fixed up the damage caused during Tobias’s escape, she also tasked them with adding some much needed features to her quarters. Varre used the opportunity to visit her, as an excellent excuse to show up late to one of his grueling training sessions.

  There was no need to keep a guard stationed here at all times, so when the king finally arrived at the Court Mage’s quarters, he was alone. Apart from his ever-present chamberlain, of course. And his personal guard detail that trailed a few feet behind.

  Varre knocked on the door and waited for permission to enter. He may have been a king, but he wasn’t so uncouth as to enter someone else’s home uninvited.

  After a few moments of waiting, he repeated the knock, but there was still no response. Finally, just as he was beginning to worry that something had happened, he heard panicked shuffling on the other side. Then, he was greeted by a slightly out of breath Elvira.

  She was wearing a heavy leather apron and thick gloves. Varre must have caught her in the middle of some alchemical experiments.

  The king settled in on the sofa and after giving her a few minutes to finish up her work, they finally began their conversation in earnest.

  “I’m so glad you finally found the time for me, your majesty,” Elvira said as she poured the king a glass of wine.

  “Well, duty calls and all that,” Varre deflected.

  “Oh, no, you don’t need to explain,” she raised her arms defensively, “I completely understand. Why, I’ve been so busy with my own work, that I barely found the time to move my own equipment here.”

  “How are you finding your new quarters?” the king asked.

  “It’s amazing, your majesty. We managed to repair all of the damage. It’s a little smaller than my house used to be,” she admitted, “but the lab makes it worth it. I can get so lost in my work now, that I barely notice when someone knocks on the door!”

  “Maybe you need to get some assistants to help you then,” Varre winked towards Benjamin.

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. Kadmos controls the guild and all of its apprentices. And as you’ve seen yourself, we don’t have the best relationship,” she smiled, “I really don’t think he’d assign any prospective students to me, even if I asked.”

  “Yeah, I believe that. But do you really need his approval? Can’t you just hire a new servant and train them up yourself?”

  “I’m afraid not. All of the students must go through the guild. And I won’t be able to find any noble willing to get their hands dirty like this for no benefits,” she spread out her arms, “there are some commoners who end up training each other off the books, but I can scarcely get involved in something like that. Especially not as your Court Mage.”

  “Wait, so the guild only accepts nobility into your ranks? I mean clearly commoners can learn magic as well. Even if they have to do it illegally,” the king pointed out.

  “It’s a terrible, unfair system,” Elvira shook her head in dismay, “but the Archmage decided so. Well, to be completely fair, it’s how things have always been done. But it is up to him to change it now.”

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  “Now hold on a minute. From what I understood, people are born with different stats and talents right? Even unique skills sometimes. And anyone can get better with training. If you don’t allow commoners in… aren’t you just missing out on having some great mages?”

  The Court Mage sighed. “We can only accept people who already show some affinity to magic. But talent checks are expensive so only nobles can afford to get them done. But the guild took it a step further. Even if some wealthy commoner manages to get a talent check and he does appear to have an interesting talent, we cannot accept him. ‘It would send the wrong message’, he’d say,” Elvira mimicked the Archmage’s voice.

  “That seems wasteful. I’d like to look into changing that at some point,” Varre looked out of the window, towards the city.

  “It will not be easy, your majesty. Kadmos is a powerful man. And most of the guild would be against it,” she closed her eyes, “but for what’s it worth. You have my support.”

  “Good. Then I’d like you to start thinking on how we could tackle this problem.”

  “With pleasure, your majesty,” Elvira smiled, “but I know you didn’t come here for this. You’d like to hear about your skill.”

  The king cleared his throat. “Exactly. Like I said, I’ve been so, so busy over these last few months. But I can’t be putting it off forever.”

  “Please, no need to explain. It’s my fault. I should have brought this to your attention earlier.”

  Phew, Varre thought to himself, that went easier than I thought it would. “Then as a compromise, why don’t you just share what you found out?”

  “Of course,” she stood up and began pacing around the room, “first of all. As you probably noticed by now, none of the people you’ve asked know anything about it, right? I dug deeper into it, scoured the entire library back at the guild and could not find a single mention of ‘Strange Mind’ anywhere.”

  “So that’s it then? We’ll never know?”

  “That could happen… But it’s not completely hopeless! There are other abilities, ones that I think might be similar to yours. Some are more rare than others, but generally, most abilities that have anything to do with the mind, are related to magic. Yours is clearly unique in some way, but given enough time and experimentation, we should be able to figure it out.”

  “Alright. How do these other skills work then? The ones that you found.”

  “Well, most abilities like that relate to the very concept of casting magic. There are wizards who are able to cast spells by visualizing them with their Mind Eye. There are those who can send or receive long distance visions. But the most rare ones are the ones who are able to use Mind Control.”

  Varre raised his eyebrow. “Do you think that’s how my ability works?”

  “It could be,” Elvira admitted, “but I do not know. We could teach you the relevant spells, but I’m afraid magic that controls other people’s minds is extremely rare. And frowned upon in most societies. Our guild certainly doesn’t teach it.”

  “So is Mind Control a skill or a spell then?”

  The Court Mage sighed. “I haven’t encountered either in my entire career, but it is both. There are spells to control other people’s minds. But those that have the inborn ability are better at it in other ways. But this is just one possibility of course. Until we do more research, we cannot be certain of what your ‘Strange Mind’ does.”

  The king sat in silence for a few moments. “Could it be something bad? I mean are all skills good to begin with?”

  “That’s… a complicated answer,” Elvira slowly answered, “all abilities do something different. There are some that could be considered… detrimental, but it all depends on how you use them. But obviously, you can’t think of ways to use yours, unless you actually know how it works.”

  “So since your research hasn’t uncovered any facts yet, what can we do from here?”

  “Well, our best bet would be to find some expert in mind control magic. And before you ask, I do not know of any in all of Logres. I will ask around the guild, but I think we might have better success if we involve Chancellor Clearwater. Perhaps, if she contacts people from other places, maybe ones where mind control magic is more accepted, she will be able to find someone who actually knows your ability.”

  “Then I suppose we shall do that. I’ll talk to her at the next Council meeting.”

  “I hate to interrupt, your majesty,” Benjamin cut-in, “but if that’s all, then I’d like the Court Mage to come with us.”

  “What happened?” the king asked.

  “Oh! I almost forgot!” Elvira quickly ran towards her laboratory and began rummaging through it, “Kerryn asked me to perform a new talent check on you today!”

  Over the last week, the king spent multiple hours training every single day. The retired adventurer was relentless and did not go easy on the monarch. Varre was certain that he’s spent more time exercising since his coronation, than he’s had in his entire life on Earth. He did pushups and pull ups. Lifted weights and carried heavy bags from one end of the courtyard to the other. And every single day, he began each session with another portion of precious elixir.

  He definitely felt himself getting stronger. As if to underline that, Kerryn made sure to spend a couple hours on sparring each day, teaching the king new tricks. Varre was learning quickly and he started to feel a tangible difference between his enhanced and natural states. He was now a better duelist than when he’d started, but that wasn’t a very high bar to clear.

  On top of Kerryn’s training, Varre also regularly met with Lora. She taught him archery and had him run laps around the courtyard. Even Elvira found the time to teach him meditation. Unlike Tobias, she actually worked hard and did not search for the best opportunity to laze about.

  Once everyone was ready, the king sat down on a chair in the courtyard. The Court Mage pulled out the same stone tablet she used all those months ago and had Varre reveal his updated stats. The monarch leaned closer to get a better look at the new numbers.

  - - - - -

  Status:

  Varre of Logres

  Energy: 12/12

  - - - - -

  Attributes:

  Strength: 13 | 17

  Dexterity: 10 | 12

  Speed: 10 | 11

  Toughness: 11 | 14

  Power: 6 | 7

  Aura: 9 | 10

  Luck: 25 | 25

  - - - - -

  Abilities:

  Strange Mind

  - - - - -

  Kerryn leaned over Elvira’s shoulder to read the displayed information. “Impressive. I can see the elixir is working well!”

  The biggest change was in the attributes the coach was focusing on. Strength and toughness both went up by a lot. In fact, all the pushups Varre was doing even increased his natural strength.

  On top of that, each other stat had seen a small increase. The most surprising was his aura. This was the only other attribute to have seen a change in the natural state. All the meditation the king did to better understand how to enhance himself must have caused an effect here.

  Besides that, his energy improved as well. Now, Varre would be able to enhance himself for a full dozen minutes.

  “Don’t forget that the concentration of elixir in your body is still increasing,” the Court Mage added, “I’m sure it’s going to grow even faster as time goes on.”

  “You’re right. But it’s only been a week. With attributes like this, he’d be able to enter the adventurer’s guild,” Kerryn nodded to himself.

  “If this king business doesn’t pan out, maybe I’ll do just that!” Varre joked.

  “I suppose you’ve earned yourself a little break then,” the retired adventurer said, “you can take tomorrow off. But the day after that, we return to intensive training again!”

  The king was so happy he almost jumped. Finally, he would have time for himself. It’s too short notice to organize any feasts, he thought to himself, but I gotta celebrate somehow. Maybe we can invite Alastair here and get the whole gang together, just like old times. Maybe we can even go out into the city and visit one of our favorite taverns. I’m sure Benjamin will complain, so I better start thinking about a good reason for this outing.

  Varre finished up the day on a very optimistic note. If only he knew of the coming storm, he would have insisted on partying today.

  Just as Elvira performed her talent check on the king, a rider raced his horse down the cobblestone road to the capital. The herald sent West was about to return with bad news.

  He'll need to speak to some mind control experts.

  The others will find out tomorrow.

  Look forward to next chapter's revelations!