67th of Season of Water, 65th year of the 32nd cycle

A bit over five years had passed since Newt's return to the Explorer's Gate. Newt stood in his realm, overlooking the world of rock and lava, Magmin flickering into being next to him.

"I'm dead, aren't I?" The winged serpent with clawed arms, eerily similar to a smaller version of Brightscale, said.

"You died," Newt said, "but I think you are alive now, or at least have a chance at being alive. You're my friend, and I've been thinking about your problem for a while now."

Magmin listened without saying a word, Newt's confirmation merely an afterthought.

"You were a mighty tenth realm dragon once, but you died. I found your double core, and something had happened, and I somehow got a shadow of your core." Newt found himself rambling, so he stopped talking, gathered his thoughts, and continued. "Anyway, I was thinking that, like how mageknights of seventh realm and higher can manifest their realms as a physical space for others to enter, I might be able to manifest you as a physical entity. It will probably require decades of research, but I think between you, me, and Dandelion we can make it happen."

"Who's Dandelion?" Magmin blinked.

"A friend. But that's something we can discuss at the later layers of the seventh realm. For now, the goal is to reach that height. And the first step is this."

Newt willed his realm's barrier to shatter, and it cracked like glass. The crystalline wall burst outwards and claimed a foothold of his newest layer before reforming into the new realm barrier.

"I don't understand why people find that difficult."

Magmin shrugged. His realm advanced with Newt's visits to his secret realm, and he had never experienced any difficulty.

Newt left the meditation chamber without wanting to stir trouble.

"Congratulations on your breakthrough, Sir Salamandra," the outer student manning the desk greeted him.

"Thanks."

Everyone Newt passed on his way to Lady Alabaster's residence offered congratulations, and Newt was starting to feel embarrassed.

"Newstar," Violetcloud, whose realm Newt suddenly matched, smiled when she saw him. "Congratulations. Your master is probably already expecting you in her study."

Newt nodded and continued unescorted, while Violetcloud went to prepare tea for them.

"Congratulations, Newstar," Lady Alabaster said as Newt entered her study. "What is it you want?"

Newt blushed. He hadn't said anything, and his master already saw through him. "I was thinking of spending a couple of moons getting used to my new strength, sparring, fighting, spellwork. Then, after my summer tribulation, I thought I'd go visit my clan."

Lady Alabaster nodded, seemingly not surprised one bit.

"That's fine. You can join the inner students heading out to Summersweald and spend a moon at your clan. We need to discuss your realm sculpting regimen, since you will handle most of the expansion at your clan."

Newt stared at her in shock.

"We're not stupid, Newstar. You have a secret there that lets you expand your realm quickly, and that's fine. Nobody's going to snatch it from you. We assume there's a nontrivial amount of danger involved. Otherwise, such a treasure wouldn't make sense. You're bizarrely strong thanks to your tribulations, so we have faith in you."

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She flashed Newt a smile that wasn't a smile before continuing.

"Now, the expected time to fully sculpt your fourth realm is forty to sixty years of hard, devoted work. Given your pace so far, that would translate to more than a century for you. The meditation chamber can halve this, and we can get certain tonics which, while prohibitively expensive for any realm, could triple the ease with which you work your realm. Combined with the meditation chamber, you can reach the peak of the fourth realm in fifteen years, right in time for the Sage's Realm tournament. You would also go insane from the pressure, so we're not doing it."

"But, Master—!"

"That's the gatemaster's call. We will buy every single tonic you need, regardless of the cost, but we won't rush you for the tournament. You being at the peak of the fourth realm, two-thirds of which are sculpted, and of sound mind is infinitely better than you peaking at everything, but losing yourself in the process. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Master."

"Now, regarding your body, we will need to work out your exact strength so you can train accordingly, but your tribulations have been growing weaker, the last one barely doing anything for you, save for forcing us to protect you, but even that was merely a fraction of the power of your first tribulation. Soon you won't need our help to endure them, and Lord Longfang estimates they will stop altogether before the tournament."

Newt nodded and listened as his master outlined the plan for his training in the next fifteen years. It included a mandatory sleep schedule, as well as time for relaxation without training of any kind, even reading.

"But, Master, this will slow down my growth."

"Some people need speed," Lady Alabaster admitted. "Most people need it, in fact. You, however, don't. What you need is stability and power. A sturdy foundation for the mountain that will prop our order in the millennia to come. I think that one regret Lady Dreadwalker had at her deathbed was that she wouldn't get to mentor you. Gatemaster says he isn't ready to take you in as a ward, but he will have to get ready, since you're rapidly approaching the limits of what Flameax and I can teach.

"Now, if you think this is bad, unassisted sculpting of the entirety of your fifth realm would take close to one thousand years, while natural sculpting is almost impossible at the sixth realm. I am sculpting my realm bit by bit, but I will leave more than half of it barren in order to advance in time. It's a delicate matter, one you hopefully won't have to deal with…"

Newt left his master's study feeling depressed. One one hand, the order will invest an obscene amount of money in him. Just the potions he would take at the fourth realm could fund someone's rise from the fifth into the sixth. All that debt was naturally Newt's to pay one day, and it more or less cemented his lifelong allegiance to Explorer's Gate. Lady Alabaster all but told him he would take on the mantle of the gatemaster one day. And, apparently, Gatemaster Greenthorn's rise involved a similar, bankrupting, burning of resources, even though in his case it started at the sixth realm.

Newt sighed and went over to Rose's place. She had joined the ranks of the elites, reaching the fourth realm two years ago.

The young woman sat in her garden, a miniature human, the size of a newborn baby, in her hands. The lifelike doll squirmed and bled as Rose struggled to staunch the bleeding.

Newt watched in silence, following the flow of mana from Rose into the doll, where it grew muddled, and yet he could see hints of it. He frowned.

Newt had read about the benefits of the fourth realm, and they included faster thinking, stronger body, greater lifespan, and longer range of his magical abilities. The sharper mana sense he experienced wasn't on the list.

"Hey, Newt! Congratulations on your advancement!" Rose said while the doll in her hands spasmed in a death rattle. She had failed to save her patient.

"Thanks, Rose. Do you mind if I test something out?"

"Yeah, sure," she said with some confusion, then Newt conjured a ball of flame and threw it into the air.

It flew twenty feet, the supposed limit of his realm, and Newt still felt the connection with the mana. Then it flew further, still maintaining its shape and the connection with its creator. Finally, two hundred feet up, the ball of fire burst, painting the sky with flames.

Rose stared at the reddish-orange sky in silence before turning to Newt, his mouth just as agape as hers was. "How did you do that?"

"I don't know. Let's go to the jungle." Newt led the way, and as soon as they were in an uncultivated territory, he tried making the biggest earth spike he could as far away as he could.

Again, instead of twenty feet away, Newt's mana traveled two hundred feet. It hardened the ground and erupted as a spike sixty feet tall, and Newt gasped for air. He had just invested more than half his earth mana into the spell, and the imbalance made his mind lurch.

He quickly threw the biggest fireball he could up into the air, and it exploded into an inferno, putting his previous fireball to shame.

"What's going on?" Lord Elmshade arrived like a surging flood, and scrunched his eyes at Newt. "Oh, it's you again. Follow me to the Chamber of Punishment. Exploding the order's property is certainly against the rules, and they will find which ones you broke."

Newt smiled at the joke.

"I'm not joking. Follow me. You don't own the place and can't go around spreading wanton destruction whenever you feel like it." He paused. "Also, congratulations on your advancement."

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