Sleeping Player (Project Chrysalis Book 3) by John Gold (novel24 TXT) 📕

he didn’t show me what he could do. Candidates need to be tested in a variety of circumstances so they flash their best side, you see their motives, and you get an idea for how they’re developing.”

“And your prognosis?”

“All I can talk about so far are his strength and his mastery. He doesn’t have much mana, he fights a defensive battle, he doesn’t have equipment, he doesn’t have battle mage abilities, and he’s not very experienced with magic battles. He does have basic knowledge about close-combat magic and spell combinations. His focus is on linear attacks to boost the raw power behind him, and he’s smart for his age, though he needs to fight a variety of opponents that will push him to use his mastery to beat them. For now, he relies on brute force. He needs more life experience and conversation, too. Oh, and he can’t tell which fights he can win before he joins them yet.”

“You can even see that?”

Krash closed his eyes, the question calling to mind some sad memories.

“We all do lots of things every day, and each of them tell the people watching quite a bit. The saddest and best part is his grief, his mood, his internal emptiness, his love, his desires, and his thirst to live and fight for what’s most valuable.” Krash remembered how he left the world. They’d made too many mistakes. “If I don’t see that in a candidate now, it’ll be too late later. And it doesn’t even have anything to do with manipulating what you know; it’s about motivation. I want to guide him along the path to happiness.”

Krash lost himself in his plans for how he could test the boy. He had the opportunity to evaluate other candidates, too, and the demon invasion would be perfect for that.

***

After my visit to the city of the dead, I have my battle for the title of apprentice. My opponent is a mage swordsman with a double Light Magic specialty. For the first time, I’m faced with someone just as capable as me. His light aura blinds me, he has two battle familiars he got with the title of mage, and there’s the well-developed swordsman skills to boot. It takes me five seconds to figure all that out—the amount of time it takes him to dash over. Up against somebody like that, I don’t have a shot at winning unless I change things up. I switch over to defense, throwing up my most powerful earth shield. The mage is focused on doing physical damage—my Achilles heel. I’m forced to pull an ace out of my sleeve.

After refreshing my still-strong shield, I wait for my mana to recover. My tsunami spell cost me ten thousand gold, but it saves my life this day. As the enormous wave sweeps across the arena, the mage swordsman summons a golem to establish his defense. Yes, I remember Gaia’s battle. My plan is to learn from her experience.

My opponent quickly realizes what trap I’m setting and protects himself, periodically probing my shield with long-range attacks.

Master swordsman amulets are designed for a specific type of damage. I need my opponent to switch over quickly to one that neutralizes lightning, and that’s exactly what it does. I’ve dug in, hiding from the other mage. And why is that?

“Meteor. Maximum.”

The second ace I bought gets thrown onto the table. I hadn’t been able to use those seals without victims, so they were the first two I bought when I had money.

The ground shakes, but that’s exactly what I was waiting for. Sure, my granite shield flying off from the force of the shockwave was no surprise. But sliding fifty meters across the sand on my nose and slamming into the wall of the arena? The double meteor turned out even better than I expected. Hooray! I have a new tactic for surviving in extreme conditions.

New magical mastery title: Life Magic Apprentice

Life Magic spell effectiveness +125%

I’ve never seen Anri this happy. Along with my new ring, he gives me a hug, telling me that very few life mages make it to the rank of scholar, to say nothing of apprentice. Anri loves Life Magic almost as much as a mother loves his child, and he’s always overjoyed when it succeeds. I’m tickled to hear his praise.

A week goes by after my trip to the city of the dead. I spend the whole time at the Two Trolls tavern sitting on one of the roof beams, with a vantage point from which I can watch all the guests. It’s a wonderful picture: the smell of good food, fresh gossip and news, and the voices of men and women, children and adults. Life reigns supreme, full of the people I missed in the dungeon. I can’t sleep, nightmares ravage me, and even snoozing doesn’t help me rest. A couple of times, almost falling down after one of the nightmares, I have to pull some impressively acrobatic tricks. I can feel LJ guarding me during my dreams, if less obviously than in the city of the dead. He only shows up in moments of mortal danger or when my exhausted mind needs a break.

My nightmares always echo reality. I see the ghosts even when they’re invisible, and the worst dream of all is the one about the man in black who I sense in every shadow. Sometimes, he moves from shadow to shadow, and I wake up with his evil eyes fixed on me. He never does anything besides follow me wherever I go.

On the first day back from the city of the dead, Kirk told me that Femida isn’t in Katain or Radaam. We’ll have our answer for Ovidius in another ten days, for Kongul, eight more after that.

Kirk tells me why he hates Sagie.

“You know, I had just turned eighteen, and I was in love for the