Nick floated next to his and Trixie’s bed in his duel auras. For most of the day prior he had received instructions from Midnight on how to improve his aura. He had been tackling the issue with his flight aura wrong, instead of trying to move the aura like that of a levitation spell he needed to think of it as a mix between a gravity spell and armor spell with just a little bit of a levitation spell. Once he started taking this new approach he began to fly faster and faster until by dusk he was able to more or less keep up with midnight’s cruising speed. Midnight could still out maneuver and fly faster than him if she wished, but at least now he could actually keep up with her on a base level.

Right now he was practicing with his magic control, channeling a minute trickle through his level ten channels to achieve the desired effect of maintaining the of simply floating there, not even enough magic to disturb Trixie from her sleep, yet allowing him to stay armored and airborne. Around him were various household items, floating in around him like electrons around an atom core, again with the absolute smallest magic he could manage without dropping them.

With the amount of magic he was using he was barely able to keep up the spells, but that was the point, like doing 100 curls with a ten pound dumbbells. He needed to keep this up to train his body to make the most with the smallest amounts of magic he had. If he had learned this before he came here, he would have been much better in the fight against the bandits after Trixie. This type of training also allowed him to recover from his daytime training, while he could recover within seconds from flesh wounds, magic burn was slightly different, it damaged him on both a physical and metaphysical level, so it took longer to repair, thanks to Trixie’s DNA the magic burn was greatly reduced, but that just gave him leeway to train harder.

During the day he trained his magic channels in the exact opposite way as he was right now. During the day he trained by forcing as much magic as he could through his larger magic channels as long as he could to train them to take more pressure, doing this however would cause massive amounts of magic burn on his body that he would need to multitask so while he repairing his body from the magic burn, he could use this form of training during the night., one of the things that Zangetsu was far better at him as he typically assigned that among other things to him.

He and zangetsu had made a wonderful team. While Nick was casting or doing anything in the physical realm Zangetsu would take control of certain things to take the burden off of Nick. he would make corrections on Nicks’s casting to increase both efficiency and accuracy if the spell was intended for a target. Since he and Nick technically shared a mind they didn’t even needed to talk with one another in order to make split second decisions, they knew exactly what the other was thinking at any given point in time. They were equals in the dream/mind scape, their Training under Bill had made them second only to Bill himself.

As they grew in power they had began to draw more and more attention from the spiritual realm. With the barrier set up on the veil, he could only be attacked on a metaphysical level by lower level entities, and higher level entities would have trouble harming him after he ditched most of his internal organs, so only outer flesh wounds would do much harm to him. Each battle with a spirit or demon had pushed his and Zangetsu’s skills to their limits and made them stronger after each battle, though non would ever compare to their first encounter with a demon, before they met Bill..

Nick lied breathing heavily with his hands and feet bound to the posts of the levitating bed. His left eye was a pitch black orb that absorbed any light that touched it, his entire left half was as demonic as one could describe a possessed human. His skin was pale and sickly like a corpse, his teeth were covered in blood and looked like sharp daggers in his mouth, his fingernails were long sharp black draconic claws with his hand seaming to be covered in blood up to his elbow. His right side was the complete opposite. His right eye was a golden orb with a soft white glow, his skin was as fair as an angels, his normally raven black hair was White with a golden glow, every feature of his right side was like that of an angel's, perfect and radiant. The room shook as the priest at the foot of the bed called upon higher powers, the bed was alight with supernatural fires: black, red, grey, blue, white and gold.

Within his mind Nick watched helplessly as two legends he had always assumed mythes battled furiously over him. Michael the Archangel and the first demon lucifer. Each time they clashed swords the world he was in shook, making one continues earthquake in his mind. They moved faster than he could ever hope to follow. Suddenly they pushed each other away and landed facing each other.

“You're not allowed here lucifer, you are beyond your domain and trespassing into mine.” Radiant angel Michael started reading his sword.

“You think I give a damn about boundaries mikey? This one's soul will be mine. I will have it like so many before.” The demented demon laughed.

“And like so many times before I will not break before you.” The angel said before he and the demon vanished and the earthquake began anew. For what felt like an eternity they fought. Nick was powerless to do anything but watched as the archangel and archdemon fought over his soul. In reality the battle only lasted for 7 hours, but each second felt like centuries to him. Finally after the most ferocious battle nick had ever witnessed, michael stood above lucifer with his foot planted firmly on lucifer’s neck. In the real world nick’s body had become almost completely angelic save for his right eye, which remained a pitch black orb, but that would soon change.

“You have lost, now return to from whence you came betrayer!!!” Michael shouted before piercing lucifer's face with his sword making the foul demon begin to burn and turn to ash. As the demon was all but gone he began to laugh.

“Relish this victory Michael, for this is but one battle of many you will need to fight to keep the sigma from me.” lucifer spoke before he fell apart in a heap of ash that was blown away by the wind. When the demon was gone Michael walked up to Nick and placed a hand on his forehead.he pulled out a softly glowing orb and took a small piece of it, he breathed a white glowing mist onto the orb and fragment causing the orb to fully repair itself and the fragment to grow into a smaller marble sized orb.

“This shall act as your brother in arms against the spiritual realm. Should you ever need me, he can call me at a moment’s notice.” Michael said before fading from the dreamscape.

Ever since that night he had faced enemies from the other side on a weekly basis, sometimes even nightly. Occasionally he and Zangetsu needed to call Michael, or when he was busy Gabriel for help. Once he started learning from Bill however that had slowly began to stop, as only mid or higher level demons could get past his mental defenses until soon, even Lucifer himself fell each time they fought. He knew should he ever face them in the physical realm he was beyond screwed as he was now, but since coming here he had yet to see any of them. He may have altered his body to be extremely durable, but there were certain limitations to his body that he needed magic to overcome, or another form of energy to work with.

The stone really helped him at times, he was able to optimize his body to the point where he didn’t need large bulky organs, his hearts had been optimized and altered to act like several different organs, they filtered his blood while it was being pumped, he added hearts all over his body after making some of them roughly the size of a golf ball with limbs, he had one in each limb, one in his pelvis, and finally two in his chest behind his nipples.

The ones in his limbs were much smaller than the ones in his torso, but were mainly meant as back ups. If any one of his hearts were, say stabbed, it would not phase him much as he had at least six more working to pump blood through him, and he could heal any damaged ones within seconds. He could replace blood just as fast as he lost it, he no longer needed a waste removal systems as he just fed it into the stone by converting waste matter into water and his stomach was mainly for enjoying a good meal every now and then, though if he was honest with himself it did make him a bit picky.

His brain was honestly no different save for the stone’s natural optimization. His respiratory system was a almost no different then before. They were slightly smaller, but now he had a second set behind his ears were gills if he needed to stay underwater for long periods of time. All in all, he was less and less human with every year that passed. He really wished he had gotten that Red Tide DNA. He levitated there in his aura as quiet as a tree for the rest of the night until the sun rose.

He set down the items he had been using for practice, deactivated the spells and dedicated his efforts to healing the last bits of magic burn from the day before. He walked over to find they had started to leave the rolling hills and were now in the outskirts of a large village. Careful not to wake Trixie, Nick walked over to their closet and grabbed the armored clothing he, Silk and Iron had made. It was a perfect fit and looked outstanding. The shoulders were lightly armored. Around the color was a furry and fluffy hood. along with the he had enchanted bracers on the four arms that held on snugly, he also had black gloves that held on tightly, but not so much that it restricted his movements. on the knuckles and back of his hands were armored plates.

Along with his jacket they had also crafted him a set of armored pants with plates on the sides of his thighs and armored and boots. Now his chitian armor was still a few leagues ahead of these, but he didn’t always have it on, so it payed to have something that could take a beating before he had to and gave him time to morph his body. Once dressed he climbed through the hatch in the roof of the cart to be met with the cold morning air.

“Good morning lad.” Iron said to him slightly groggily, he had been driving since about 5 in the morning, it was almost seven now.

“Morning Iron.” Nick greeted him, “so, this is Omskbeak?”

“Indeed, it’s been too long since I last set eyes on the place. Though I wish it was under better circumstances.” Iron said taking a sip of coffee.

“Yea. how long do you think it will we run into an agent of Steel hands?” Nick asked.

“Not sure, but I can suspect soon. The spoiled brat doesn’t know when to quit, and is to clever for his own good.” Iron said downing a serious expression.

“Wish I knew him like you do, all I have is disgust and hatred for what he tried to do to Trixie.” Nick said his eyes darkening at the thought of him.

“While I know we can’t let our guard down about Steel hands making a move, what do we do about Twilight? She refuses to socialize with any of us except for me, and even then she is trying to convince me that Silk is evil and that we need to get back to Equestria.” Nick sighed.

“I’m not sure, Celestia has indoctrinated her into believing her words as if they were the very foundation of existence. I’m not sure if we should let her stay or make her go, thanks to Celestia she believes you as her property in a sense. While she wouldn’t mistreat you necessarily, she has been taught to see non equines as dangerous or second class citizens. Even if you were a pony she would still treat you like that for being male.” Iron said.

“Wait, what does meh balls have to do with anything.” Nick asked making Iron chuckle.

“Ah, forgive me I sometimes forget you're not from this world. Simply put, Equestria and a lot of its allied nations view males as second class citizens due to there being so few males compared to females, and males being only about twice as strong as a female, when he would have about six or eight mares to contend with for power.” Iron explained.

“That isn’t much different then minotaurs isn’t it? Why are ponies treat their males like that when their equal in minotaurs?” Nick asked.

“Minotaur's have a single male deity, whereas equines have four female deities. They are so heavily female dominated that males are… let’s say less powerful. And you're a male not even of this planet, let alone not a pony, you would be treated close to a pet, a glorified servant.” Iron said.

“Shit.. is it like that all over Equestria?” Nick asked gaining more and more reason not to go back there.

“Nah, it’s gotten better over the last century. Males are mostly legally equal with mares, it’s more of a culture thing at this point.” Iron said, “the reason you would be treated like that is because that mare back there, is Celestia’s personal student.”

“Well that would explain some things, but how do you know?” Nick asked.

“Just because I’m retired doesn’t mean I don’t serve the king anymore!” Iron laughed, “I still keep in contact with him, royal knights never really retire, simply make room for the next generation.” Iron said, “but regarding miss sparkle, our inside agents have been watching her for over a decade now. In truth, there hasn’t been a unicorn with that level of skill and power since starswirl the bearded, and he could easily take on two royal knights wielding fragments of Gaia. if she wanted to try and force you home, it would take all of us to stop her.”

“That could prove problematic.” Nick said rubbing his chin.

“I see an opportunity, chances are slim, but we may have a chance at changing her.” Iron said.

“Really? How?” Nick asked.

“All she has ever known was in Canterlot's inner city and the town you arrived in. her core beliefs would have been developed completely by Celestia without anything to contradict it, out here she has a chance to experience the world as it really is without Celestia telling her anything against the truth.” Iron said, “We could turn what is perhaps Celestia’s greatest weapon against her, without Twilight being Celestia’s yes mare she wouldn’t be able to point at anything and have the elements of harmony blasted at everything in her path.”

“Elements of harmony?” Nick asked.

“Leftover magic from the creation of our world, it was originally meant as a failsafe in case beings stronger than the pantheon appeared, it has the combined might of half the pantheon plus Faust's magic imbued into it. Over time it has grown into it’s own entity, with far greater magic than what was originally put into them. It would take a being of unimaginable power to even match it.” Iron explained.

“Huh, well then yes it would be a good idea to take that kind of power from a mad mare like Celestia.” Nick agreed.

“Were here.” Iron said motioning to the gates of the city. To their right was a large river that appeared to connect to a port on the side of the city.

“Halt! Who goes there and what is your business in Omsbeak?” A large Griffin says pointing his spear at them.

“My name is Iron Fist, and me and my student here are here to see on old friend. We are here to see an old friend.” Iron said making the guards tense at hearing that name.

“You're not fooling anyone young man, Iron Fist is an old grizzled minotaur not some whelp barely out of their teens.” The Griffin said making Irons eyebrow twitch.

“Old Bull am I?” Iron muttered.

“That would my doing, I have magic that can reverse aging.” Nick said.

“What even are you? Some sort of bald monkey? And do you honestly expect us to believe you?” The Guard said.

“Need proof?” Nick asked looking at the older of the two, he appeared to be in his mid thirties to early forties.

“Tell you what, if you can make me young again you can enter the city with that train thingamajigger anytime you come to the city.” The older guard said.

“You can’t be serious river!” The younger guard said.

“Relax carm, it’s just a bluff they can’t hold up to.” the older Griffin said.

“If we get in trouble for this you're taking responsibility for it.” Carm said making river roll his eyes.

“Well, let's see it then.” River said. Nick jumped down and walked over to the guard.

“This spell requires direct touch with the subject.” Nick said taking off his glove and holding out his hand for a handshake. River took off his gauntlet and took Nick’s hand.

“I’m waiting.” The guard mocked. Meanwhile Nick was already focusing on the Griffins cells and body, he began repairing any damaged cells, extending the telomeres in his DNA so that it was the length of a younger version of him, he fixed any problems that arose with old age such as arthritis, and finally he revitalized his skin and put color back into the greying feathers. The griffin didn’t even realize what was happening, but his younger fellow guard did with wide eyes.

“R-River…?” Carm said not believing his eyes.

“Ha, knew this was a waste of time. Sorry but we cannot allow for that thing to enter the city it would take up most of the road.” River said walking back to his post.

“Umm… River, you need to look in a mirror.” Carm said.

“I got one right here!” Iron said pulling one out from… somewhere?

“Hey gummy have you seen my mirror?” Pinkie said popping her head out of a drawer next to the alligator. He responded with a slow unsynchronized blink.

“This is the third time this week something like this has happened… I wonder…” Pinkie said squinting and slowly sinking back into the drawer.

“Where did you even get that? Nick asked not recalling him having a mirror. Iron only shrugged and tossed him the mirror. Nick presented the mirror to the now young griffin.

“I don’t believe it….” River muttered. Instead of his old grizzled face he was now a a young hawk again.

“Well a deal's a deal old chap, we get to go in now right?” Iron asked.

“Uh huh…” The Griffin said dumbfounded. Nick took back the mirror and threw it back to Iron who put it in his coat. They opened the doors for them and let them into town. The town was lively as early as it was. They made their way down to town square before Iron turned to Nick.

“Alright, I’m going ahead to find one of my contacts here, it’ll take a while so how's about you explore the town a bit?” Iron asked.

“Sure why not? Where do you want to meet up?” Nick asked.

“Meet me here in town square around noon to one. If you get lost all the major roads lead here, if you're still lost and need direction there should be a guard around that can give you directions.” Iron said.

“Alrighty then.” Nick said jumping off and started walking down a random road to what he assumed to be a market of some sort. He passed by several markets offering quality looking merchandise, wealth not being a problem thanks to the stone he bought a few things that he thought might prove useful, or he just really wanted. He bought a floral bracelet and a for Silk, a new bow and quiver, he would modify later, and a silver necklace for Trixie.

For Iron he bought an extra large cheese wheel that he had to strap to his back. For himself he bought a nice leg satchel to hold some things, might be useful for carrying some scrolls or a tome or something, for now it housed the smaller items he bought. He bought himself some throwing knives that fit snugly in slots in his leg satchel, finally he bought a cloak with an invisibility enchantment on it that he could activate with a thought. The cloak came down to about the mid of his calf. As nick walked through the market with his new things he noticed an alleyway that had a sign above it.

“Lady Ferst’s magic emporium… ohh… I like where this is going..” Nick said walking towards the shop. As he entered the shop a bell above the door signaled his arrival. He was soon greeted by a mare that hid her face behind a hood.

“What can i get for the young stallion this morning?” the mare asked.

“I take it you're Lady Ferst?” Nick asked.

“Indeed I am the same, now then, how might i be of service today?” Ferst asked.

“I’m just browsing, do you happen to have any mithril by any chance? Maybe some lyrium?” Nick asked, he knew she wouldn’t know what the hell lyrium was as it was just a magical mineral in a video game back in his world, but maybe he would get luck with mithril?

“Ah yes, I just received fresh shipments of both, fresh from the mines of Orehammar in Minotauria.” Nick’s eyebrow twitched for a second at hearing that she actually had lyrium form a city that sounded a lot like a certain dwarf city….

“Alright, do you by any chance have any books on the use of lyrium?” Nick asked.

“You mean you were going to buy lyrium without knowing what to do with it…? You're a rather dense one aren’t you…” Ferst said.

“I didn’t think you actually had any, I was just kind of joking.” Nick said.

“This is a magic shop. Why wouldn’t I have lyrium? It’s vital to making rune paint among so many other things.” Ferst asked.

“Because… never mind. Do you have a book on lyrium to go with it?” Nick asked.

“Yes, I believe I have one around here somewhere.” she said before running her hand over a bookshelf full of magical tomes, one of which caught Nick’s eye immediately. On the spine of one of the books was a golden pyramid with a blue eye in the middle.

“Wait, I would like that one there, with the gold pyramid.” Nick said.

“This old thing? A good choice.” while she sounded genuine, she had said it through clenched teeth. “Might I also suggest these, it could prove useful with this tome.” Ferst said holding up a bag of etherealite.

“I’ll take it!!” Nick said throwing a couple of bars of gold onto the counter.

“Good, now then. How much lyrium and mithril do you need?” Ferst asked.

“Five ingots of lyrium and twenty ingots of mithril” Nick said. After setting the agreed amount for his purchase after throwing in a bag for the mithril. He put the tomb in the large pocket of his satchel and walk out. “Have a nice day” Nick said to Ferst as he left.

“We’re doomed…” Faust said as she morphed into her original form after dispelling the shop and returning to her tower.

As Nick walked through the streets Nick started to get the strange feeling he was being watched. As it was still a few hours off of when he was supposed to meet up with the others he couldn’t just head back to the caravan as he had no idea where it was. He decided he could lose whoever might be watching him in the crowd and began traveling down a main road. He made it about halfway down the main road before taking a turn into an ally hoping that he had gotten away, he knew he must look silly like this, but if he actually was being followed he felt better safe than sorry.

“It’s about time you got out of the main road.” He heard Twilight behind him. Suddenly he was picked up by her magic and pulled deeper into the alleyway. When he stood back up he saw her standing in front of him with a scroll in front of her. He readied a counterspell as magic shot out from the scroll he launched his counter spell, and aimed it right at Twilight. Twilight’s eyes widened as instead of him aiming for the scroll’s spell he aimed his magic right at her.

In a panic she threw up a shield spell disrupting the other spells she was casting, the gem in her hand glowed a bright purple and a beam shot out from it ricocheting of the shield and back at her. Twilight let out a shriek muffled by the shield spell as the spell hit her and sealed her inside of a prison of her own making. Nick walked up to her and looked down at the now trapped mare. Shaking his head he picked up the gem.

“Help!! Somepony help!!!” He heard Twilight scream in his head.

“Should have thought about that before trying to seal me. Now you're screwed for the foreseeable future.” Nick said forming a small philosopher's stone orb in the middle of his forehead, forming optic nerves in it and etching black runes around them he turned it into an eye much like kaguya ootsutsuki third eye. Channelling a large amount of magic into the runes and mixing in a arms worth of stone energy into it he formed it into a powerful sealing orb. He touched the gem to his new eye and transferred the captive mare into his makeshift “eye” while absorbing all the magic within the gem and transferring it into the sealing runes.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?!” Twilight shouted.

“Showing you the error of your ways. While you're in there you won’t need sleep, food or water, you’ll just need to simply exist. Until you're ready to come out you're stuck in there, now shut up and learn some manners.” Nick said.

“Wait! You can’t do this!! I have rights! I’m the Princess’s personal student!! I am your mas-” She shouted before cut her off by canceling the link allowing her to speak to him. He set the spell to be dependant on her, so long as she held onto her beliefs that Celestia had hammered into her head, she would be trapped in a prison she had meant for him. Nick walked out of the alley with his new accessory with a neutral look on his face.

He had no hate for the mare, she had simply been brainwashed from an early age to believe in falsehoods with no evidence to back it up, like all children she was genetically programmed to learn from her elders, and deities had an effect of being able to hammer in what they want a bit easier. He saw this as an opportunity of sorts like Iron had suggested, it was probably a bit different than what Iron had in mind, but under the circumstances he was sure Iron would understand, after all, the dumb bitch did technically seal herself, he just made a better cage for her. This would also keep a weapon like the elements out of Celestia’s control, no one being with that mind set should have access to that much power.

Nick walked down the road when he realized, he forgot to get Midnight a gift, he turned back towards the market and started thinking about what she might like. He didn’t know her very well, from her appearance she seemed to be a monk of sorts, maybe a bowstaff? A halberd might work. Something she could channel magic through. He made his way down the road in search of something to get her.