Following the short ceremony with August, Trajan, and the Bronze Paladin, Leon checked in with Lapis and then returned home. He found his Heaven’s Eye beastmaster training with Anzu, getting the young griffin used to wearing a saddle. As soon as Anzu saw Leon, though, the griffin instantly abandoned his training and bounded over to Leon, nuzzling against his human and celebrating that Leon had come home.

Leon laughed, played with Anzu a bit, then let the beastmaster get the griffin back to training.

Elise was working at the Heaven’s Eye Tower, so the only other person in the villa was Naiad. Leon knew she was there, but she hadn’t done all that much after sleeping with Elise and him, so he didn’t pay her too much mind. If she wasn’t going to come out of the guest rooms on her own, then Leon wasn’t going to insist that she do so.

But even with the run of the house, Leon wasn’t quite sure what to do. He had seen something that he couldn’t get out of his head, something that required his attention, and it wasn’t the ceremony with August. Rather, it was what to do about Tiberias.

Years ago, a pair of assassins working for Tiberias’ family tried to have him murdered as he made his way toward Fort 127 after his time in the Knight Academy. Fortunately, there hadn’t been any more attempts on his life, but one was enough in Leon’s mind.

Now that he knew Tiberias was in the city, Leon needed to figure out what to do about it. At the very least, he wanted to make another inspection of the villa’s defenses and to warn Elise, but beyond that, he didn’t know what to do. He could go to Trajan, but with the Prince’s work in the Royal Palace, Leon hesitated to put more on his plate. Whatever he decided to do, he’d much prefer to take care of this on his own, if possible.

Of course, Elise had already gotten Heaven’s Eye to retaliate for the initial attempt on Leon’s life, which Leon assumed to be the reason why there hadn’t been a follow-up attempts, but economic sanctions weren’t enough for Leon. Hitting the Decimius family in the wallet lacked the catharsis that he greatly desired, that of taking vengeance by his own hand.

But that would be highly illegal. So was trying to have someone assassinated, but Leon doubted that justice would be served even if he had more evidence than he did. Maybe Heaven’s Eye would vouch for him, but Leon didn’t want to rely completely on them. Vengeance would be had by his own hand if it was to be had at all.

With a sigh, Leon walked into the recently-completed meditation chamber just off the villa’s training room and sat down in the dark and the quiet to think. When he got himself settled, he closed his eyes and cast his consciousness deep into himself. He opened his eyes and was greeted with the sight of his mountainous soul realm, illuminated with the bright Mists of Chaos that surrounded it.

Xaphan was busy with his healing meditations and the Thunderbird was nowhere to be seen, both things that didn’t bother Leon any; he craved silence, to work in peace while he thought about the issue at hand. He’d been training in his soul realm every day with the Thunderbird, after all, and he was grateful to get some time to work alone.

To that end, Leon took off from the marble platform and flew into the air.

The mountain hadn’t changed much in the past few weeks. Were it in the physical world, it would be impossible to climb, even to powerful sixth or seventh-tier mages, with many sheer rock cliffs and long cracks and fissures running down every side of the mountain. It was essentially perfect in Leon’s mind, missing only grass and trees on the lower slopes, and snow on the higher slopes.

And that meant it was time to begin construction of the Mind Palace itself. Leon had been planning this for a long time, so he knew exactly what he wanted to do. What was more, in his soul realm, he was the master of everything, as the Thunderbird and the many books he’d read had repeated to him ad nauseam. It was his world, he was the Lord and Master; he only had to have the will and the world would bend itself around him—with some help from the Mists of Chaos when needed, of course.

With a wave of his hand, Leon cracked the mountain almost in half. An enormous fissure ran from the mountain’s roots and ended about two-thirds up the mountain, though it wasn’t long enough to cut through the entire length of the island. Leon waved again, and the fissure widened, forming a long ravine from one end of the mountain to the other, and the mountain’s cap almost seeming like a steep bridge above the ravine. With one last hand wave, the surface of the mountain closed up, sealing away the ravine in all but a few select places.

Leon’s Mind Palace would be built in two separate sections. The first would be more conventional, a palace upon the mountain’s peak, built in the white marble style that was so prevalent in the Bull Kingdom, and at its peak would be a small lantern chamber with his throne.

The second part would be built into this covered ravine, an underground construct in the style of his family’s architecture—trapezoidal hallways, light projections in place of painted or tiled murals, and long multi-leveled galleries. In the center of the underground section would be a large open-air courtyard, with both paved and wild areas and lit by the few parts of the ravine that had been left open to the air, turning them into skylights.

Leon could see it so clearly that he felt like he could finish it in a matter of days. Plus, he felt it fit him to a T, a façade of the Bull Kingdom covering the true Mind Palace, that of an underground, hidden palace built in a style reminiscent of House Raime and Thunderbird Clan architecture.

All this shaking of the island as Leon carved out a huge underground space woke Xaphan from his healing trance, and the demon watched with a quiet seriousness that was quite unlike the demon. With some small insight into what Leon was doing, the demon watched everything that Leon did, but he made no attempts to speak with the young human or to give voice to what was on his mind.

Suddenly, without warning and without announcement, the Thunderbird appeared right beside him. Xaphan’s omnipresent fires instantly died down in the Thunderbird’s presence, but the monstrous bird was as quiet as Xaphan. Neither acknowledged each other’s presence for the longest time, not until long after Leon had descended into the new ravine to begin work on the foundations of the actual palace part of his Mind Palace.

“We’re… just going to let him continue like this? No warnings or anything?” Xaphan asked.

[If he succeeds, then he ascends to the seventh-tier. If he fails, then he will learn from this. Everyone makes mistakes, it’s fine if we let him carry on, since either way, he will benefit from the experience. Besides, it’s good to let him do as he pleases, at least for now. It will make him take the advice of his elders to heart more willingly.]

Xaphan frowned, but he didn’t argue with the Thunderbird. She was millions of years older than he was, and it was her descendant that they were speaking of, but he wasn’t happy about it. He felt like Leon needed to be reminded that Mind Palaces didn’t need to be grand or complex things. They needed to reflect who Leon was, to represent him in as true a way as was possible.

He quietly, reluctantly returned to his healing trance, though, putting all of this out of his mind. The Thunderbird was in largely in charge of Leon’s training, so he’d leave any explanations to her if Leon failed in his endeavor. Besides, Xaphan didn’t know for certain whether or not Leon would fail; the boy could always surprise him.

---

When Leon finally resurfaced several hours after beginning, he found the Thunderbird waiting for him at the peak of the mountain, with Xaphan continuing to focus on his recovery. Leon swiftly flew back up to his throne to meet with his ancestor.

As he approached, the Thunderbird morphed back into her human form and stared at Leon as he approached in a way that somewhat disturbed her descendant.

“So…” Leon hesitantly began as he arrived. “… what’s up for today’s training?”

The Thunderbird, continuing to smile at Leon, asked him, “What is your Mind Palace going to be?”

Leon gave her a strange look, then asked, “Why?”

“A mage’s soul realm is an expression of who they are,” the Thunderbird said. “Is what you’re building appropriate for you?”

Leon was quite confident that it was, but with a being as powerful and venerable as the Thunderbird asking him this question, he couldn’t help but pause and take a moment to think about it.

After that moment was over, though, his answer was no different.

“It is,” Leon replied.

The Thunderbird cast her piercing gaze around the mountain, at all of Leon’s work during the past few weeks. “I suppose if that’s how you feel, then there’s nothing more to say, is there?”

Leon frowned, his own golden eyes surveying the mountain he’d built. He did genuinely feel it was appropriate, but he wondered what gave the Thunderbird the impression that it wasn’t. It was a question worth pondering if the Thunderbird thought it worth bringing up.

“Weapons training for today,” the Thunderbird said, conjuring a blade made of light. This sight surprised Leon the first time he had seen it weeks before, but the Thunderbird simply told him that at her age and power, light magic was hardly unknown to her. Lightning was her focus, with wind and water coming in close second, but she had passable knowledge in every magical element.

Leon called upon one of his training swords, causing it to burst from his vault and rocket through the air and into his hand. Given the Thunderbird’s power, he could’ve used a regular sword, but he didn’t have one of those—at least, he hadn’t any that weren’t made from the Thunderbird’s own mana and thus, useless for their current purpose.

They squared off, each unarmored and armed with a sword long enough to be used with either one hand or two. The Thunderbird smiled confidently at Leon, then slightly dropped her guard. Leon wasn’t going to miss this opportunity, so he charged as fast as his lightning magic-enhanced legs would allow.

He was so fast that he would’ve been a blur to mortal eyes, but to the Thunderbird, he might as well have been moving in slow motion. She was happy that he noticed the opening she made, though, even as she easily blocked him and pushed him back.

The two continued like this for about an hour, with the Thunderbird giving occasional instruction to help Leon refine his family’s hyper-aggressive fighting style, helping Leon to integrate some moves to take advantage of his power and preference for armor—essentially letting Leon forgo defense even more since his armor and magic power could handle his defense. By the end of it all, Leon felt dead tired, something he never would’ve thought possible to experience with his magic body until their training had begun. Despite this, if the Thunderbird had wanted them to continue, Leon would’ve gleefully done so; he loved sparring and learning new magics.

But they were still over, and Leon had to fight to not collapse in front of his own throne. Instead, he took a seat on the first step leading down the mountain.

“What’s troubling you?” the Thunderbird asked.

“Nothing,” Leon instantly replied.

“It’s not nothing, I could sense some uncertainty in your blade. Your mind wasn’t entirely here.”

Leon sighed. Hiding something from his own ancestor was hardly a good idea, and besides, she could probably give him some good advice.

“Is it about that river nymph?” the Thunderbird asked with a smirk.

“No!” Leon almost shouted, before repeating much quieter, “No. I’ve… made my peace with her… at least, as much as I think I can right now. She’s not been bothering me or Elise, so I think we’re good on that front.”

“She came to you demanding a child, then after mating with you once, she stopped talking to you completely?” the Thunderbird asked, seeking confirmation.

“Uh… yes…” Leon confirmed, though with it framed like that, he immediately saw what the Thunderbird was pointing out.

“If you think that you’re good on that front, then you’re in for a world of pain,” the Thunderbird said as she rolled her eyes. “You know, I thought you would’ve been better with women since you had at least one of them who could stand to be with you, but I guess I was mistaken…”

Leon almost cringed his bones into dust. He knew the Thunderbird was right in her own mocking way, he had little idea what went on in the minds of most women. Taking Elise as an example of him having a way with women would be misleading, since Elise had been the primary instigator of their relationship, something which did bring Leon no small amount of shame and regret; he wished he could be more assertive so that their relationship could feel more equal to him.

But he could ruminate on that later, right now, he had something else to ask the Thunderbird.

“If someone tried to kill you,” Leon began, getting the Thunderbird’s attention and successfully changing the subject, “what would you do?”

“I’d obliterate them,” the Thunderbird quickly answered. “No ifs, ands, or buts. If they tried to kill me once, then they’d most certainly try to do so again. Kill them immediately and be done with it.”

“I understand,” Leon replied, nodding his head. It was a sentiment he agreed with, though the reason he was hesitating with Tiberias was that if he were caught, he could very well be imprisoned, if not executed, for attempting to murder a member of the highest level of nobility, only a single rank below that of Royalty. Even though Leon didn’t much care for the laws of the Bull Kingdom, having been raised in a place with only his father as an authority figure, he still balked at violating the law so blatantly.

Law and order was something that Leon agreed with on an intellectual level, but he had no great love for the Bull Kingdom or House Taurus which ruled it. In fact, he actually felt some small amount of resentment towards them for subjugating his family, despite his own personal loyalty to Trajan. As a result, Leon’s respect for their laws went only so far as he was willing to agree with them. He supported laws that kept the peace, but his desire for personal vengeance greatly conflicted with that, and he didn’t know what to do.

“Who are you speaking of, specifically?” the Thunderbird asked.

Leon quickly narrated the events upon the galley with the two assassins, and the Thunderbird’s expression barely changed throughout.

After finishing with the discovery by Heaven’s Eye that the invisibility ring Leon had looted from the assassins had been commissioned by Tiberias’ father, Leon added, “I honestly don’t care that much that they tried to kill me. I’m not so hypocritical as to think that I’m untouchable and that while I’m so ready to kill, that others shouldn’t be that way toward me. But as you said, they tried to kill me once, and they’ll probably do so again, especially since I’m in a relationship with a woman that Tiberias has a history of unsuccessfully trying to court. In fact, I’d say that last bit went into the realm of harassment, though I suppose that would depend on Elise’s opinion…”

“A conundrum, I suppose,” the Thunderbird said. “You have joined this Kingdom, have you not? At least, for the time being?”

“That would be fair to say,” Leon replied.

“This Kingdom, would it give you justice for the attempt on your life?”

“Given his father is a Duke, I doubt it.”

“Then kill this ‘Tiberias’ human,” the Thunderbird said, her face splitting in a vicious smile.

Leon nodded in agreement, but it didn’t really address the main issue of why he was hesitating, which was that it was highly illegal and could result in severe repercussions for him, Trajan, and even possibly Elise.

“There’s always a trade off when joining a society,” the Thunderbird said, noticing Leon’s hesitation and lack of resolve to do what he wanted, that being to kill his enemy. “A government expects your loyalty and your obedience. In return, you must expect protection and prosperity. Give and take. If one side only takes and does not give, then what reason have you to uphold the deal?”

“Not being an asshole?” Leon said with a morbid chuckle. “My father raised me not to look only to force to solve my problems, to not reach for my blade at the slightest sign of a problem. But in this case, there’s essentially no other choice if I want this bastard gone.”

“He has tried to kill you once, and if nothing has changed since then, he will try again,” the Thunderbird said, her tone quiet and serious. “But your decision is yours to make. I have little power to aid you outside of your soul realm, so all I can do is offer my advice, and my advice is to end the threat as quickly and cleanly as you can.”

“Mmm,” Leon hummed, agreeing with what she said. He sat in thought for ten minutes mulling the situation over, and in the end, he rose from where he was sitting with a decision in mind.

He was going to kill Tiberias. He didn’t know exactly when—he’d have to do some work before then to ensure he could pull it off—but his decision was made.

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