Former FBI Agent Horace Walter blinked into a light above him. He squinted against the bright and unyielding light and groaned as he sat up, anticipating pain, but finding none. Confused he blinked and slowly acclimated to the light. He found himself in a giant chamber filled with stone slabs and lights above them just like the slab he laid on. His memory was hazy, confused and for a long minute he was entirely unable to remember anything.

But then it all came back to him. Why he was a Former FBI Agent and not an active one. Horace cursed the day he had taken that damned case of a mass grave in the forest. The horrible chemical sludge made out of dead people had haunted him at his every waking moment and soon they had found more like it in other parts of the country. A task force had been established hunting the crime syndicate responsible for this atrocity, but it got nowhere. At the time it was impossible to glean anything useful out of the chemical sludge besides the chemicals it had been made out of, which were commonly available everywhere in the country. Still his bosses had tried to connect the sales of those chemicals to a gang or some such, but it had never worked out.

In the end Horace had been left alone with the mystery as everyone moved on. It became a cold case and for a long time there was no trace of anyone connected to these body dump sites. Until the day that Cartel Hitmen attacked a random college student on the street and the kid retaliated. Horace had seen the street and the incredible precision as the kid had murdered the hardened killers like they were nothing more than cardboard cutouts on a shooting range. The sheer proficiency with weapons and the calculated cruelty had stuck with him.

It was pure coincidence Horace had been assigned to the manhunt that followed for the ex special forces prospect. He had been assigned to do a background check and investigate the man and it was during this investigation of the college student he found some very peculiar facts. One, the man, Aaron Plane, had way too much money for his upbringing and education. He had been a soldier, a special Forces guy who left the force after a few years, which explained how he had been able to kill his assailants which such proficiency. But there was no other employment history, just some vague mentions of making his money on the stock market. Officially the income had been marked and designated as return on investment by various shadowy banks oversees and those would not share any of their information with the Bureau. Plane had even paid tax on it and everything, but it was still a crazy amount of money to be made in any investment. Either way Horace had been unsatisfied and suspicious of the man and while reconstructing the man's movements Horace found some glaring similarities with the dump sites from his cold case.

So Horace had put two and two together and had connected Aaron Plane, the dump sites and an infamous Russian Hitman people called the Reaper. And it was thanks to Horace's investigation into the man that they caught him after the man had taken revenge on the cartel boss who had ordered his assassination.

In the end it had been up to him to organize the evidence to convict the man of his crimes and put him behind bars. It had taken years, in which he rose in the ranks of the FBI for finding one of the most wanted men in the country and locking him up. The jury was convinced by his evidence, although they could never actually prove Plane was the Reaper. Horace had interviewed the psychopathic murderer plenty of times and he was sure he had the right man.

For a few years after that Horace was flying high, getting prestigious assignments and he did what he did best. Ingratiate himself with his bosses and rich elites and backers of political parties that could eventually get him into office. Horace had big ambitions back then and a slight alcohol problem. But which cop did not have a vice?

But everything had come crashing down a few years later when Plane somehow managed to convince some stupid lawyer to reopen his case. The worst part was that the courts agreed that the things he had been convicted for could be argued as self defense. Suddenly the arrest he had built a career upon was in jeopardy. So Horace had been very invested in keeping Plane locked up. Because besides his career being in danger, he knew he had found the right guy. In his Investigation he had found out everything there was to know about the man. His family history, the death of his father in the service, the abuse of his mother by an apparently corrupt Ex-CIA agent and her eventual death due to cancer. He had investigated that corrupt agent's death and had found Plane's first murder. There were so many after that he could tie to Plane that he had single handedly halved the cold cases of many police stations. Which had given him an incredible amount of inter-force capital to draw upon for his career.

So in a panic and with little time to go until the courts would start to reopen that whole can of worms and crush his career, Horace had scrambled together a short sighted, stupid murder attempt on his own. In retrospect he realized how badly planned and executed it had been. But Horace was good at investigating, at finding things out about Murder, not necessarily planning murders himself. So he brought in Franklin Sawyer, a kid with a grudge to kill Plane.

It had all been a mistake. Sawyer had been unable to get the job done and so he had taken him out. A necessity for the plan to work and a death that afterwards weighed heavily on his consciousness. The only gratification he had was killing Plane himself.

Of course with a scheme this bad he had paid for it afterwards. His bosses were outraged, the warden was outraged. His friends in high positions did not take his calls anymore and although nobody wanted a proper investigation into Plane's death, Horace had been sidelined. His career had died with Plane and two years later he was pushing paper in a Town in the middle of nowhere. A disgraced FBI agent now turned beat cop. It had crushed him. So his little drinking problem had become a big drinking problem. And with that came another set of crushing problems he did not have the energy to deal with. His wife left him and his son went to college. Soon he was alone. Just another sad drunken cop who waits for his pension.

Until one day he made a routine traffic stop for a broken taillight and when he approached the window to talk he had looked into the barrel of a gun. He had been so drunk at the time he had barely moved before the bullet had crushed his ribs and torn his internal organs apart. He cursed his fat belly that made it uncomfortable to wear bullet proof vests. Had he not been lazy he might have gotten away with a few bruises. Along with his self hatred the memory of the pain of being shot came back to him and made him groan and hold his chest.

For a long moment he was back there on the ground, looking after the piece of shit driving away. He had been left bleeding out on the street. He could still feel the cold earth and the pain wrecking his body. How he had been unable to breathe as his lungs filled with blood. Then there had been darkness.

Horace shook his head forcefully as those memories settled back into his mind and for a few minutes he just sat there and shivered in phantom pain from an injury he must have died on. Then he remembered what came after that. He had been floating in the dark, losing himself and he quickly banished those thoughts, those memories. That...that could not have happened. No, he was alive, so he could not have died. It was that simple.

He must be at a hospital, must have been saved somehow. Maybe he had been in a Coma. Yes, that was it. They must have saved him and put him into a special facility. This was high tech for sure, maybe some of his friends in high places had come through for him in the end.

But then he studied his own body, trying to find the scar from the gunshot wound. And what he found made him shudder. He was not the same anymore. Instead of his beer belly, smooth, even slightly distinct abs welcomed him. His body did not hurt anymore, he did not feel the craving for alcohol, no shakes in his hands, no liver spots. His skin was unblemished and pure. He could stand easily and vaguely he remembered feeling like this when he had at first gone to become a cop, an FBI agent. When he had been young.

But that could not be, right?

Nobody just aged in reverse. Nothing this outlandish existed or if it did Horace did not think he qualified for treatments like this. So what did that mean?

With a frown he started to walk up and down the stone slabs, first looking for some clothes, but finding none. Then he studied the lights closer and realized they were not electrical, but floating balls of pure lazily rolling light. He had no explanation for that, no explanation for any of this. He was alone in the room and when he found the statue in one corner of the room, he shuddered, before he took heart and started to investigate.

Turned out he was in some sort of Tower of a guy called Emnu and he was an Aspirant about to be tested. This Emnu was apparently a big deal and although Horace did not understand any of this, he eventually made the only decision he could, he entered the Hall of Illusions.

Fighting and getting used to his new body was a revelation. He remembered so much of his training, of hand to hand combat, of fighting and defending himself. The gamefied portions of the Hall of Illusions left him questioning his sanity, but he kept progressing. Equipped himself with a mace and armor and faced off against monsters until a young man in equally mismatched armor stood in front of him. Now Horace understood. This was the psychological part of the illusion. Because who he saw was Franklin Sawyer. The kid he had used to assassinate Plane. The boy did not even seem to recognize him, but Horace was over his guilt. This was just an illusion and he was not stopping here.

He had been injured by the beasts before and he did not want to die in here because he was not sure any of this was real. In the end it could not be, or how else was the kid here? Horace screamed and bashed the kids head in in the end, after disarming him. It was a horrible sight and he shuddered involuntarily when he murdered the kid. It was alright, it had been necessary. He had accepted his guilt, it could not hurt him anymore. But then the corpse did not vanish.

Unlike all the other times in the Hall of Illusions, this time the corpse did not burst apart, but stayed, bleeding on the floor. He shuddered when he realized what he had done. When he understood the implications of his acts. He had murdered the kid again in another life. Horace broke down and sobbed, terrified of himself, of what he had become. The next monster spawned and killed him. It hurt, it hurt so bad, but Horace had been too shocked to muster enough of a defense.

When Horace woke up a voice spoke to him and only after long minutes where he had been unable to speak he realized what it wanted from him. To chose a path, to begin a new life. In that moment Horace abhorred violence, hated this place and what it had made him do. He could not have known! The murder broke him and he sat there sobbing for hours. But eventually he got up and chose a new path.

Horace became a green mage, a non combat mage who could make plants grow. It had been an impulsive decision to walk away from all violence. Magic had seemed like the better path with better prospects as it did not necessarily require him to kill things.

When he learned the spell from the strange illusion he felt like he was reborn. He could make things grow, understood a basic principle of biology, of what made things prosper and live. He could manipulate it, could enhance it, feed it with his magic. Magic that was all around him. All he had to do was form a spellform in his mind and the world responded. It felt like getting a gift, like the world was forgiving him for his transgressions.

So Horace became a mage, one of the few who stepped out from under the Symbols. There he had been welcomed, had been clothed and fed and lead to a small city full of wonders, full of magic and Vessels. As a non combat mage he was directly introduced to the green mages working in the few greenhouses in the Town. His innate spell was a very rare and powerful growth spell that made him into a star over night.

Over the next few weeks Horace got used to the world, to his abilities and to the people living here. He quickly saw that becoming a mage had been the right choice. Mages were the high society in this world. The rulers. And he realized he had been a fool or a genius for picking to become a green mage. Because he was entirely useless in a fight.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

While other mages could throw fireballs and have lightning arc from their finger tips, Horace could barely make a plant grow a whole season in a day. Which was apparently incredible in its own right, but seemed mundane to him. The mages who had combat potential become leaders of their own groups, made money by climbing and through a stipend. Horace had none of that. But he made 100 times as much money. He was printing mana stones by taking rare or uncommon commodities and growing them himself in his spare time. He flooded the market with coffee, tea and he even grew some rare herbs for the alchemist guild.

In short: what he lacked in combat potential, he gained in financial and as such political power. Horace found himself a faction of mages, ingratiated himself with the rich and powerful families of the Town. Be it through gifts or by making clear he was a star in the making. Destined to go to Ambition, a much bigger metropolis sized town on the tenth floor. That he could get a free lift up to Ambition from people who would protect him was good news, because Horace was barely stronger than a normal man.

So to make up for his shortcomings, Horace bought a grimoire and tried to learn the spells described in it. With 0 success. He could not wrap his head around any of it. Magic was as inaccessible to him as quantum physics had been in his old life. He quickly realized that this was not the way to use his wealth efficiently. So he bought himself enchanted items instead. It was just like buying guns and armor back home. Equipment could change a lot.

He got himself three shield rings, all of them status symbols and capable of creating life saving shield bubbles that would block any spells, arrows or weapons coming for him. Two of the shields were single use rechargeable items that blocked and lasted for a very short time. But the third one created a shield that lasted for almost a whole minute and was hideously expensive. He bought it from an Enchanter who had come down here from Ambition. From that man he also got his two offensive trinkets. A wristband that would shoot an electric bolt of lighting at an enemy. 10 powerful shots, enough to kill anything on the lower floors, but he had been cautioned of the 5th floor and up where tougher monsters started to appear. The second offensive item was a pendant that created ethereal chains that would latch onto an enemy and string them up like in a medieval torture device. Both items were leagues better than anything on the Towns market and Horace was basking in the attention and envy of his peers because of his new gear, when he saw a Wanted Poster on a wall.

His old habit of checking posters like this from his time as a cop was hard to break, but this was the first of its kind he had seen in this world. It shocked him more than he could say, because the man on the Poster was none other than Aaron Plane.

Horace stood there on the street frozen for long minutes, unable to process what he was seeing. When one of his friends spoke up. He was a fairly mediocre mage with good connections to the Adventurers guild because one of the guild elders was his father.

"First time seeing a bounty this big? Such a shame the Cultivator was recently declared dead. If he had encountered me, he would not have lasted even a minute…" the man started to boast, when Horace interrupted him.

"He was declared dead? What does that mean?"

"Well that he is dead of course. There was a huge manhunt recently for the man. Big stink and lots of politics involved. The bastard ambushed and killed a group of Climbers for no reason at all! So I say he got what he deserved."

"Did they find a body?"

"What?"

"Did. They. Find. A body?"

"I don't know, Horace! What has gotten into you? You should not blink twice at the price on the man's head, you could pay that out of your pocket change, right? What is the big deal?"

Horace swallowed and nodded.

"Yes...yes you are right. No big deal." he lied.

But internally his world had changed. Horace had been determined to make the best out of his new life. He had not touched a bottle since coming here and had never participated in any of the drugs that were flowing around the many parties he had been to. He had tried to honor his mistake, to make his life the best he could, for not just himself, but Sawyer. But now, everything changed.

He had not been brought back to start a new life. But to hunt and finish a monster that had died in his old life. He was suddenly so sure that this was his destiny. He was here to kill Aaron Plane, in any universe, in any world. So Horace looked down at his newly bought magical items and slowly he balled his hands into fists. He had not planned it, but he was equipped to deal with anyone on this floor. Only those who came from Ambition could pose a threat and Plane was not one of those. That he had been declared dead was obviously a ruse of the man. He could not be dead. Without a body he would never believe it. So it was time to investigate.

With the righteous wrath of a Crusader fighting against evil and ready to bribe anyone, Horace started to seriously investigate the person people on this floor called "The Cultivator". It came with little surprise that Plane was an infamous murderer in this world, just like he had been in his last one. Men like him do not change. The more he found out about the man though, the more mysterious he got. Apparently there was a third way to power in the Tower that was called Cultivation, a mysterious Force harnessed by Emnu's enemies. It was said that all Cultivators were mad murderous calamities and it was said that they were unfathomably strong.

Plane for example had stepped out from under the Symbols and almost immediately ambushed and massacred a whole team of Vessels with an experienced mage. It was impossible and yet it had happened. Horace was reminded of the street and the deaths of the hardened cartel killers again. The vicious, merciless precision of a sick and twisted mind. This was just like him. The same way to fight, although without any ranged capabilities. Apparently the man was almost able to fly though to make up for that. But Horace at first discarded that silly notion. There were many exaggerations about Plane out there and Plane could not possibly fly.

When he finally located a mage who actually had participated in the manhunt he got a clearer picture. Plane could not fly, but leap very far, as well as stop mid air, breaking any physical laws Horace knew. He was very dangerous out of ambush, but could not withstand magic in an open fight. That was good news. He was also apparently vulnerable to crowd control spells, but it was really difficult to hit him with those. Simply because he was incredibly quick apparently. Rogue level quick. So Horace went and watched some rogues train to get a feeling of the man's speed. He was horrified. The man was much more dangerous than he had been before. That was for certain.

Like always when Horace Walter investigated something, he was thorough. He went at every possible avenue and investigated every lead in its entirely, only after he had exhausted all his possibilities did he draw conclusions. In this case the breakthrough came when he investigated the manhunt itself. Apparently the manhunt had been the brainchild of Aurix, the mayor and the most powerful mage on the floor, but one day he had simply given up and declared the man dead. It was true the people hunting for Plane had lost him on the second floor and there was a rumor that he had been hiding on the third floor all this time. The third floor was a water floor and so big and wide ranging it was impossible to search through apparently. So that made some twisted amount of sense.

What did not make sense was Aurix sudden change of heart. When Horace dug deeper into that he found out that Aurix had gotten the same Enchanter that had sold Horace the powerful magical items to enchant his villa. Master Torus, who Horace tried his best to impress without much success sadly, had apparently been paid by a "Coalition of concerned Citizens" to enchant the mayors villa. Who turned out to be just cronies of a certain Alchemist guild elder called Mars Ventros. When Horace looked into Ventros he was stunned. Because Ventros was apparently not just a high ranking official, but the boss of the Towns foremost criminal organization: the red-light district.

So why would the boss of a criminal enterprise pay for the mayors villa and the next day said mayor ended the manhunt? Because Ventros was protecting Plane. The Cultivator must have been hiding in the wretched criminal dens of the Town. It was the most logical conclusion and so Horace started his surveillance of the district.

The district itself was a mad construct that allowed a lawless area in the Town and limited all illegal or illicit activity only to that district. It meant that law and order ceased to function in these streets and the red armbanded Vessels took over from the Town watch. It was so obvious Plane was hiding in there, it was ludicrous that nobody had gotten the idea so far.

Horace was obsessed with this idea. He spent every waking moment, he was not growing things for money, watching the district and gathering intelligence. He even bought himself a small house on the outskirts where he had a good look into the main street of the district. It was a wretched place where drug dealers dealt during the day and whores and gambling dens took over at night. It disgusted Horace that such a thing was allowed, but Ventros was apparently very well connected and had a high level. Which meant very few people could ever contest him. His organization was peaceful and seen as the reason that there was so little crime in the Town. An argument Horace grudgingly agreed with. But only because all the criminal activity was shifted to here. There were still burglaries, murders, rapes and all the other horrific things he had seen in his time as a police officer. Just that the perpetrators had a chance to flee to a zone where they were in charge. But yes, the total number of crimes compared to the population of the Town was incredibly small. So it did work.

It took weeks of observation until Horace slowly pieced together the inner workings of the district. There was a hierarchy here and intricate supply lines of resources flowing in and out of the red-light district. If he was still a cop he would start there, shorten the supply, ensure the district would starve and then when they were irrelevant he could kick them off the board politically and then with a military strike. But there was no appetite for this kind of initiative. Everyone was happy with the district. It was the center of the night life in the Town and many mages bought mind altering substances to better understand magic from the dealers in the district. A fact that made Horace himself tempted to try it. But he had kept his oath, had not touched any mind altering substance since being reborn in the tower.

Horace had just woken up and sat down to drink a cup of coffee while he observed the district, when it happened. Horace froze as he saw a tall broad shouldered man come out of one of the brothels. He recognized Plane immediately. He was younger and much healthier looking than before, but it was him. He had the same eyes and Horace shivered in his chair, before he calmed himself down. He took a long sip from his coffee and then stood up slowly. He walked down the stairs to the ground floor and counted the seconds while he put on his shoes and cloak. He double checked his magical items, all of which had a maximum amount of charge and then left the house, like he was going to work, like he always did.

Plane sauntered out of the districts heart and Horace followed him slowly, always behind someone, never really looking at the man. Always staying concealed, but keeping the man in the corner of his eyes. Plane paused to buy himself breakfast it seemed, which gave Horace time to study the man's weapons. He had two daggers in sheathes at his hip and an assortment of pouches and small bottles he recognized as healing potions. He was posing as a Climber for sure. But Horace knew the true nature of this man. He was a killer, a murderer who took sick pleasure in the suffering of his victims. Now that he had found him, Horace would find out where his hideout was and then he would assemble a team of powerful mages and burn him alive in arcane fire. Horace did not have any illusions he himself would be enough. He had to be sure he got Plane when he tried and you always called for backup when facing a dangerous criminal like Plane.

Slowly Horace followed him and used all of his training and experience from a previous life to stick close to the man, without obviously trailing him. Plane seemed blissfully ignorant about him, which was good. Then from one moment to the next the man was gone. Horace blinked and looked around, before he quickened his pace and got to the next street corner. He peered around the curve and saw Plane vanish around another corner. With a frown Horace studied the area. This was an almost abandoned part of the Town at this time in the morning. Small houses towards the edge of the Town. Some warehouses. Inconspicuous and definitively a good choice for a hideout.

Horace was on a hair trigger as he slowly walked down the road and then peered around the next corner where Plane had vanished to. But there was nobody there. He froze, looked around another time, scanning his surroundings and movement in the corner of his eyes made him activate his first shield by pure instinct. Something hard impacted his back and even though the shield took the force of the impact the bubble burst within a fraction of a second. In a Panic he activated his best shield while he tumbled to the ground.

He hit the ground hard, gasping as his own weight drove the air out of his lungs. Then he turned around, his hands held up as he aimed his offensive armband towards whoever had done this. It was Aaron Plane. Of course, he had noticed him and laid an ambush! Horace should have known. Plane was back on his feet, staring at him before he accelerated towards Horace without saying a word. Horace fired a bolt of lightning and the sizzling line of energy barely missed the man as he paused mid step. Then he leapt towards him. Frantically Horace grasped the amulet around his neck and put his back to the wall of the building he had almost been thrown to.

Plane was fast, blurring towards him, he dove out of the air like a meteor and the impact of his punch made the invisible shield buckle and twist as it negated the man's tremendous kinetic energy. This was the moment Horace had been waiting for. He activated the crowd control spell and pale purple ethereal chains appeared out of thin air all around the man that was close enough to touch. Plane tried to dodge, ducking a chain, slapping a chain aside with his palm within a fraction of a second, but the Chains latched on, held him and within 3 seconds Plane was strung up by his arms and legs and suspended two feet in the air. Horace was gasping and panting as he leaned against the wall. He was sweating and terrified. But with a start he realized he had done it.

He had caught Plane!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.