The goblin rubbed his bruised cheeks as Terra and Uriel proceeded to lecture him on the dangers of time magic… If only the book clued him in on it all. “Never have I seen a mortal charge headfirst into danger in such a thorough and reckless fashion.’ Terra began the lecture.

  “I’ve met more fools as they passed into Celestia, of course.” Uriel added on, “the majority of which died from mana starvation.” The goblin scratched his head; he wished his dives into forbidden texts would have some warnings.

  “I felt something was lacking… what did I miss?” The goblin said as he flipped through the marble book looking for something that would explain the failure of the spell.

  “I would tell you but I am afraid you would attempt it with the new knowledge.” Terra replied as he grabbed the book from the goblin, who pitifully tried to reach up and grab the text. The pouting face of Armand was clearly too much for the earth elemental. “Alright… fine…” He relented despite the dangerous glare Uriel was giving him.

  “Well?” The goblin asked expectantly.

  “Mana alone is far from sufficient to sway the balance of time; it requires several other types of energies.” Terra explained, trying to keep it vague.

  “How many types of energies?” Armand asked way too eagerly, earning himself another head smack.

  “The kinds that get you hunted down by all the creatures in the mortal plane,” Uriel replied. Considering how grumpy the angel was, Armand theorized soul energy was probably needed; the three-dimensional spell circle had six different channels, most likely requiring six types of energy. Without that, he had no hope to activate the spell with just mana.

  “Armand, you better not be doing any theory crafting.” The earth elemental said as he leaned forward, clearly recognizing the look on the goblin’s face.

  “Of course not,” he lied between his teeth. “So since you all are here, can you help me speed up my ascent to godhood?” Said statement resulted in him receiving another head smack.

  “You are too hasty; godhood normally takes millions of followers and years to achieve.” The earth elemental commented.

  “But I need to get out!” The goblin exclaimed, tears collecting in the corners of his eyes. Uriel caressed the top of the goblin’s head, trying to calm the little guy down.

  “Perhaps you should seek the assistance of your friends in preparation for your grand return?” The angel suggested, “After all, I need you to do that task I entrusted to you.” The comment earned an eye raise from Terra. Armand looked to Uriel, his eyes asking if he could share. “Go ahead.”

  “I’m surprised to hunt down a society that wants to destroy the boundary between worlds!” The words poured out of the goblin’s mouth now that he had permission.

  “Are you speaking of the Order of Return?” Terra replied, a frown gracing his face.

  “Have you heard of them?” The goblin asked in astonishment.

  “Indeed,” The earth lord replied with a nod, “Several elementals have been expressing such opinions for a long time; those voices of dissent were dealt with swiftly.”

  “Do you not want to return to the mortal world?” Armand asked, confused. Clearly, elementals want mana, and the only place to get that is the mundane world.

  “Of course, I remember when we used to inhabit that plane. But just because you want something doesn’t mean you should do it.” The titan was getting philosophical. “This delicate balance was agreed upon by all of us,” he said, looking to Uriel, who nodded in response and added.

  “The balance was created to prevent the destruction of the mortal world but unfortunately too few remember what it was like before that.” The angel added on. The goblin looked like he wanted to ask but clearly the two titanic figures had decided to move on with the conversation.

  “Why do they get to know and not share…” The goblin muttered under his breath, his complaints failing to reach their ears.

  “Perhaps you should find something to entertain yourself…” Terra said to the goblin, who stood there looking like a lost puppy during their conversation, which had devolved to some ancient language. The gift from the god of knowledge’s blessing only covered written knowledge apparently. With nothing else to do, the goblin slowly walked out of the room and walked out of the room.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Well… what now? The goblin asked himself. Perhaps he could indulge in one of his new pastimes for a spell. He went down one of the halls and entered a small room; before he even got a moment to take in the sight, he was assaulted by an armada of furry balls.

  Only after several minutes of rubs and licks did he manage to extricate himself from his attackers. While hesitant to accept the wolves initially after tending them for days on end with his readers. They had become something he could take comfort in. They even had managed to figure out that the constructs and the little goblin were essentially one and the same.

  Armand had created a large playspace for them; he had even asked Fenrir what sort of things young wolves would enjoy. So the space was filled with large bones and hides in various states of chewage. Furry balls and ropes were used as playthings and substitutes for dead animals and intestines, since the goblin had no desire to clean up that mess.

  After greeting their owner, the wolves quickly went back to playing. They regularly sought the goblin or one of the constructs for affirmation before going off to play with their siblings once more.

  Sufficiently destressed from it all, the goblin moved on to checking if he had gotten any ‘mail’ from Cassian. Once getting there, he saw a letter sitting there ready for him.

  Taking the paper and unfurling it, he saw the extremely elegant script that was most likely the merchant’s handwriting. The goblin began to scan through the text… Something about investing the initial funds in a business location at a port city… Getting a contract with a naval mercantile… needs more mithril, alchemical gold, and a dungeon passageway for the building they made. "Easy enough," the goblin shrugged as he prepped the materials that could be transferred.

  Once done with that, he had to get some assistance for the door portion of the request, so he headed over to the entryway into the royal library. Outside said door stood two guards at attention; the goblin smacked his head, he could show his goblin form to them. So he returned to the main hall and sent the knight construct in his stead.

  The guards, well aware of this form, stood at attention. “Greetings, Sir Dungeon Master.” The suit of armor nodded in response and the metallic voice rang out.

  “I require an audience with the queen and her aides; please ask them to come at their earliest convenience.”

  “Right away, sir,” one of the guards hastily replied, as the one quickly left the dungeon while the other remained. After a few minutes the guard returned. “Her majesty will meet you on the morrow.”

  “Excellent,” the suit of armor nodded and began to walk away.

  “And sir…” spoke the guard once more, causing a momentary pause in the guard’s steps, “she says she expects sweets.” If the suit of armor could have rolled his eyes, he would have.

  The goblin wasted the remainder of the day constructing more sentinels and readers. He also experimented with binding elementals to constructs in the more traditional manner, summoning elementals to control basic iron constructs only to find the usage of weak elementals would only lead to stupid constructs, while the strong elementals were obstinate to following orders.

  He kept the weak elementals to pilot some of the watchers, their mana drain being minimal, but they were more capable of controlling the little things and spared him several soul clones for that menial task. Sufficiently satisfied with the day’s effort.

  The goblin grabbed a book from the shelf, Controling the Dead before they Control you… A curiously named title but may provide more effect, leading to controlling souls instead of making a million copies of himself, not that he had already long headed down that path.

  He began to flip through the pages but soon he frowned as he noticed something. His soul, which had been homogenous, had begun to grow slightly cloudy. So, the goblin stopped reading; not just him but all the readers as well throughout the dungeon stopped as well.

  Armand willed one of the constructs to go find Uriel. The angel quickly made its way over to him. “Yes, little one?”

  “Why is my soul unhomogenizing?” The goblin asked.

  “Simple, you are changing your soul by acquiring new knowledge.” The angel monotonously replied.

  “Well, I can’t keep homogenizing my soul over and over again.” The fragment of silver was growing and he couldn’t risk mixing it equally throughout his soul or the plan would be for naught. “What do you recommend?” He asked the angel.

  “You probably won’t like it.” Uriel stated, but the goblin sat there waiting for the angelic construct to continue. “Very well… You simply need to reduce your intake of knowledge.”

  “So you are suggesting…” The face of the goblin slowly turned to horror. “That I stop reading?”

  “Stopping is a bit strong.” The angel waved his hands at the whole thing. “Just slow down so the knowledge is better assimilated throughout the soul naturally; too much change in a short amount of time will easily throw the soul into disarray.”

  “Thank you, Uriel.” The goblin said morosely. The angel took its leave. Armand sat there silently for a while. “This is going to be very boring…” He spent the remainder of the evening just reading the one book, and slowly at that. The process was agonizing but he could feel his soul wobble like a stone dropped into a pond when he went too fast.

  After reading about a third of the book, he finally went to bed. He enjoyed a night of blissful darkness. The next morning came too quickly, but he arose anyway because he knew that today was going to be quite busy; after all, the queen was coming!