Buc, the Academy of the Mind's most promising student, builds a team – consisting of the knight Slash, the necromancer Mortimer, the archer Feather, the conjuror Alexi and the enchanter Obliky – and sets out to gather the eleven Rings. He retrieves the Ring of Thought from the five priests of Nexus, the Ring of Intuition from a greedy dragon, the Ring of Will from Keef the Thief, the Ring of Division from the King of Doggonia, the Ring of Advancing from the royal Richi crypt, the Ring of Calling from a woman behind a waterfall, the Ring of Perfection from a Chamber of Perfection, the Ring of Bile from the tomb of Void's minion Pain, the Ring of Blood from the corrupt necromancer Motarin, the Ring of Variation from a temple in the Great Desert, and the Ring of Mutation from an inn in Mesa, where it had taken on the form of a commoner. Buc and his team take the Rings to Nexus's seat at the Fount of Heaven and defeat Darius, who has become Void's physical vessel. Nexus reassembles the Rod of Creation and leaves it in Buc's care, claiming that keeping it in either his or Void's possession would upset the balance between them. Buc creates a mighty palace in the Fount of Heaven's place from which he rules from that day forward.