Master

After navigating a spiritual obstacle course that felt like climbing Mount Hyjal barefoot, enduring untold hardships, ascending what felt like a million frozen stairs, and brawling with enough water elementals to fill a small ocean, Duke finally stood before the shimmering Ice Crown, ready to be "bestowed" with the power of ice.

Now, if Duke had been a true-blue, born-and-bred son of Azeroth, he might have been doing a happy dance right then and there, probably already picturing himself in a shiny new set of frost-themed robes. Too bad Duke wasn't from around here. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him more than any ice magic, that whoever slapped that crown on their head right now would instantly gain the aura of a Grade-A moron, not only tripping over their own feet but dragging everyone else down with them.

"Alright, you shadowy creep from the cracks of time and space," Duke sneered, a dangerous glint in his eye. "I don't know what you are, but you think I just fell off the turnip truck, don't you?"

He was right, of course! A mere magic circuit model, even one as potent as the Ice Crown, wouldn't have this many bells and whistles, this many dramatic flair-ups. The only logical explanation was that something had pulled a fast one, slithered its way into Karazhan, and set up shop in the juiciest, most arcane-energy-rich corner of the tower, just waiting for some unsuspecting mage to take the bait. It was probably just a sliver of its true self, a psychic fishing lure, because if its real body were here, Khadgar and Duke's alarm arrays would have been screaming bloody murder, louder than a banshee at a rock concert. But a trace of a soul? That was a whole different kettle of fish. This was Karazhan, after all, a place practically built on the astral rift. Anything could sneak in, like a cockroach at a picnic. Duke simply hadn't had enough power or time to give the place a proper spring cleaning. Luckily, his paranoia was always running on all cylinders.

The very next moment, the Ice Crown suddenly found itself with a new owner. A lich, its lower half a swirling vortex of shadowy petals, its upper body adorned with perpetually rotating chains, clad in robes of sinister purple, black, and crimson, and topped with a skull for a head, reached out with skeletal claws and placed the Ice Crown upon its own bony brow. For some reason Duke couldn't quite put his finger on, this vile entity, appearing in the depths of his spiritual world, felt… vaguely familiar.

Around her, a legion of warriors with glowing purple eyes, encased in ferocious heavy armor the color of midnight with jagged purple edges, along with a horde of shadowy figures in purple and black robes who were neither truly living nor truly dead, all dropped to one knee. They pressed their left hands to their chests, a silent, chilling salute of utmost reverence to the Ice Crown's new, temporary mistress.

"Mortal," the lich hissed, her voice like ice scraping on stone, "you understand absolutely nothing of the Burning Legion's power, its terror! Do you truly believe that merely temporarily trapping the great commander Sargeras will prevent the Burning Legion from conquering the world of Azeroth?" She paused, a chilling, guttural laugh rattling in her throat. "You are so naive!"

"No one can stop the Burning Legion, not even the Creator Titans themselves! How can you, a mere ant, hope to stand against us?!" Her voice rose, a crescendo of malevolent fury. "You have repeatedly stuck your nose where it doesn't belong, obstructing the Burning Legion's glorious march, even daring to rally these pathetic rebels! You are begging for death!"

"I am the Daughter of Frost, the very embodiment of death, the great Death Speaker!" As she declared her chilling titles, seven colossal ice-blue magic circles erupted from her palm, one directly behind her, and six more forming a perfect hexagon in the air. With her final, echoing word, the circles pulsed, trembling with unholy power. With a sickening hiss, countless razor-sharp icicles burst forth from the heart of the magic circles, piercing Duke's spiritual form with effortless ease. Duke hung there, impaled, looking for all the world like a chicken wing skewered for a barbecue, awaiting the Death Speaker's final, chilling judgment.

"Duke Edmund!" the Death Speaker's voice paused, a dramatic beat. "The sin of obstructing the Burning Legion is immeasurable! You should have been condemned to burn in the fires of hell for ten thousand years! But, considering your youth and… ignorance… I shall grant you a single chance." Her voice dropped to a menacing whisper, "Submit to me—"

"Or your soul will suffer eternal torment!"

At that precise moment, Duke, who by all rights should have been gasping his last, slowly lifted his head. An utterly inexplicable cheerfulness bloomed on his face, and a dangerous glint sparked in his eyes. "You fool," he drawled, a smirk playing on his lips, "if I were genuinely scared by a cheap parlor trick like this in my own spiritual world, I'd sooner find a bucket and drown myself."

"How dare you!" The Death Speaker shrieked, her voice cracking with fury! She summoned a colossal iceberg, a mountain of ice, and sent it crashing down towards Duke, intending to flatten him like a pancake. But Duke didn't even flinch. He simply waited, motionless, until the very last nanosecond before the iceberg crushed him. Then, with a lightning-fast movement, he shot out his right hand and, with a crisp click, grabbed the very top of the descending iceberg.

The next second, the iceberg vanished, replaced by a long, shimmering icy whip that stretched from the Death Speaker's clawed hand straight into Duke's. "Gotcha," Duke said, his face alight with the triumphant joy of a child who'd just caught a particularly elusive firefly. He gave a light tug, and the entire illusion shattered like cheap glass. The terrible collapse, a cascade of psychic debris, rippled from the whip, through the Death Speaker, and even consumed her kneeling cultists and fanatics.

"Aaaah…!"

At the very same moment, a powerful surge of energy erupted from the void portal on the first floor of Karazhan. An ice chain, seemingly conjured from the very depths of the tower, suddenly yanked hard, dragging a towering, ice-blue female demon, twice the height of a man, screaming from the swirling portal. The heroic warrior Michael, ever vigilant, instantly drew his sword, raising it high. "Enemy attack!" he bellowed, his voice echoing through the ancient halls. Simultaneously, Duke's voice, calm and utterly unconcerned, boomed from somewhere deeper within Karazhan: "Khadgar, get rid of her."

"As you command, Master," Khadgar replied, his spectral form bowing with an unusually polite flourish.

What followed was the truly tragic tale of a group of Heroic Spirits, a Heroic Spirit Mage, and a boss named "Curator" (who was probably just trying to enjoy his tea), ganging up on another boss who, in a truly rookie mistake, had shown up without her entourage and clearly relied on them for her livelihood.

Duke, however, couldn't be bothered with the details. He didn't even waste a single brain cell trying to figure out why the "Death Speaker," a boss who should have been chilling (pun intended) in Icecrown Citadel far in the future, was suddenly making a cameo appearance here. Or why she was now just a generic demon. There was no logic, no science, to the bizarre parade of horrors that popped out of astral rifts. If you tried to make sense of it, you'd end up talking to yourself in a padded cell.

When Duke finally felt the familiar, reassuring presence of the System AI re-establish contact, the chaotic construction of the ice circuit magic model in his body had finally been brought to heel, becoming perfectly controllable. Duke peered into his own arcane anatomy, courtesy of the System's diagnostic overlay. Now, his magic circuits looked like a work of art. Each colossal circuit was composed of countless hair-thin, wire-like pathways, woven together like a bundle of intricate threads, forming a vast, interconnected web. These myriad small circuits, in turn, coalesced into a truly gargantuan, unified whole.

The three colossal circuits – ice, fire, and arcane – now intertwined like a mystical trinity. They were three perfect circles, seamlessly connected, yet each retaining its own independent domain, at times complementing each other, at times asserting their unique strengths. While the Ice Crown and Phoenix Flame could draw raw power directly from the elemental world, they still relied on the fundamental, core arcane circuit for their very existence. Before his icy ordeal, Duke's arcane and fire circuits had been relatively robust, but his ice magic had always been a bit of a lightweight, running out of steam faster than a goblin's rocket. Now, it was a completely different ballgame.

Now, the three circuits formed a true trident of power, a formidable weapon of arcane might. An indescribable, surging wave of power bloomed from Duke's very core. This power was unlike anything Duke had ever encountered. It wasn't just stronger, more refined, or purer; it was… more himself.

Could it be? Was this… the mastery of arcane?!