《Mage of Shadows》 1 Arrival Pain. That was all that Favian could feel after waking up. His head was spinning at what seemed like a thousand miles an hour, and it felt like his brain would explode in any moment. After several minutes the nauseating feeling subsided, and his bearings came back to him. At this point he realised that he was laying down flat on his face in a stack of hay. The floorboards creaked and it seemed that he was on some sort of moving vehicle. ''Wasn''t I just at the medical school treating some patients?'' Favian inwardly thought. Nothing seemed to make sense to him right now. He had just been doing some routine work at his medical school, when he suddenly felt a wave of lethargy, and everything faded to black. Opening his eyes, he looked around to see that he indeed was lying in a pile of hay, which thankfully made the irregular and abrupt movements of this vehicle less painful on his head. He was in what seemed to be a wooden carriage, lit only by some candles hung towards both sides of the it, with some moonlight shining into it from between little cracks in the wood. Realising how cold it was inside, Favian struggled to stand up in a hurry. The cold was sapping away at his strength by the second and he wanted to find something to warm him up. Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced through his head and he fell back down into the hay. A cascade of memories came along with the pain and left as quickly as it came. The memories seemed too real to be a dream, and Favian swallowed hard as he realised that he had been transmigrated. The memories of the body he inhabited showed him that he was currently living on the continent of Ortu Solis. This world was similar to that of medieval Earth, however, other sentient races such as elves and dwarves all lived together on this continent. These facts weren''t too hard to believe for Favian, as he was a highly educated individual in his fourth year of medical school. He had always believed that somewhere in the universe there were other sentient races, as he thought it to be highly naive to think there was only one sentient race living out of the billions of planets in the universe. Yet, what was still hard to believe despite the first-hand recollection of this body, was the existence of magic. Magic was real. It lived within every object and could be found in the air, water, fire and even in objects. The owner of his body, who to his surprise was also named Favian, was an orphan who had been found to have the innate talent to become a mage. It seemed that only 1 in 1 thousand individuals was found to have a body capable to practice magic. Having come from nothing, he obviously chose to accept the scholarship to study magic at an academy he was currently travelling towards, based on his potential. His orphanage had been a rundown institution in the slums of his hometown, and the most frequent professions that children who grew up there would take on were that of a thief or a mercenary. Many also turned into drunkards and wastes of society. ''If I can learn magic and become proficient in it, I''ll at least be able to fulfil the desires of the now dead person whose body I''ve taken'' Favian thought to himself. It left a bad taste in his mouth that in order for him to be reincarnated, he had to take away the life of another person, however this was just the luck of the draw. Having worked in a medical setting, Favian was very quick to adapt to any situation presented to him, thus he was able to push down the overwhelming emotions within him for now, in order to survive this harsh cold. Just as he was in a deep train of thought trying to organise all of his memories, the carriage he was on abruptly halted to a stop and a loud voice could be heard. "Gerald, go check inside. I bet that a filthy beggar is in the back right now." Shouted an immature male voice. The sound of heavy footsteps trudging in snow became clearer as it moved towards the back of the carriage. After a few seconds of silence, the doors in front of Favian were flung open. Cold air rushed in and Favian could not help but instinctively shudder due to freezing temperature outside. Despite him wearing a heavy fur coat, the cold still affected his hands, and blood rushed towards his face, giving his brown skin a reddish hue. Standing at the doorway was a burly boy, with dark black hair that curled around tightly on his head. His arms looked very muscular, and he looked at Favian with a sly look in his eyes. "Didn''t you hear what the boss said? Get out now!" shouted Gerald, who seemed no older than 16, still had yet to get rid of the baby fat in his face. Favian looked at the situation and disgust could be seen on his face, as he realised that these people were unnecessarily trying to make life difficult for him. Especially the fact that they would try to bully an orphan who possessed nothing left him furious. Yet, for now he had to comply with them, as he didn''t know what sort of power these people had, or how many of them there were. He also had nowhere to run, as the carriage only had one entrance and that was blocked by the burly boy in front of him. Having decided to do as asked for now, he still thought to himself ''If push comes to shove, and they want to harm me, I''ll try to run and find some help. It would be too much of a shame if I die again after being reincarnated for not even 5 minutes.'' This was how this world worked, Favian knew that here power meant everything, and that many rich people would step on those lower in the social standing just to display their power or vent their anger. As he stepped outside, he could feel the cold snow and a crunching sound could be heard underneath him. It was dark outside, and the moon shone down onto the trail which the carriage was taking. Multiple carriages surrounded his, and it seemed there were about 20 of them currently moving towards their destination. Some were like his own, run down and completely wooden whilst others were shining in gold and embroidery. He guessed that the wealthy individuals would be situated in such in those luxury vehicles. The first thing his eyes met after stepping outside was a rather short boy, who looked to be no more than 14 or 15 years old. His blonde hair fell down onto his shoulders, and his blue eyes pierced through Favian, with a rather insidious glare. As he looked Favian up and down, the rather scrawny boy stated, "Me and my friends here, Gerald and John are going around collecting payment for travel protection. You have yet to pay the 1 gold fee for our protection services, so cough up that money right now. We wouldn''t want anything to happen, now would we?" "What? 1 gold fee? I didn''t hear anything about such a cost when I was asked to join one of the academies." Muttered Favian. He knew that these individuals saw that his carriage was rather run down, so they must have guessed him to be poor, and just wanted to beat the crap out of somebody with the excuse of protection payment. Anger flared up in the eyes of the youth, and he proceeded to motion towards his two rather burly friends Gerald and John, "Hold him back, let me teach this disrespectful beggar a lesson here. How dare a beggar tarnish the profession of a mage." Before Favian could realise what was going on, he was flanked by Gerald behind him, who held his arms up in the air whilst constraining his neck. It was then that the leader of the group threw a punch at his stomach. The instinct to cover up his stomach was completely stopped by Gerald behind him, who kept picking him back up off the ground and placing him in a position to get hit by the group''s leader. After the sixth punch to his stomach, Favian couldn''t help it anymore and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Help me somebody, I''m being murdered." Right after this cry for help, a mysterious pressure could be felt within the area. It was almost as if the amount of gravity on his body was increasing. His body felt a lot heavier and he couldn''t help but get down on one knee, whilst trying his hardest to resist against the pressure from above. From above Favian could feel a new presence, a terrifying power emanated from this figure as it swooped down to the path between Favian and his three assailants, who were now lying on the floor with their faces pressed against the snow. Fear could be seen painted against the canvas of their faces. "Now what do we have here? Attempting to fight against another candidate before trials have even begun?" a powerful voice reached his ears, whilst a sweet fragrance of perfume lifted his nose up towards this individual. Standing 6 feet tall was a dark-haired woman, with brown eyes and a snowy complexion, almost identical to the snow in the vicinity. Her eyes twinkled with a playful light as she looked onto Favian, who was trying his best not to fall onto his face like the three others had. [Accomplishment achieved. Damsel in distress: Get saved by a beautiful heroine in a time of need. 50 experience received]. 2 You are too kind ''Huh? Was that just now an in-game notification? But I''m not in a game right now, what does this mean?'' Favian instinctively opened his eyes wide as he usually would whenever he was surprised. ''Not only have I reincarnated, but I even seem to have my favourite game World of Exile''s game system reincarnated with me. I must be dreaming. Please wake up because this isn''t funny anymore!'' [Ding! System can confirm host is not asleep! Host currently under 4 times planet''s gravitational pressure. Would you like the system to initialise protective barrier around host? Mana required 10] ''Yes please, quickly I''m struggling to not fall onto my face right now'' he replied in his mind. This whole sequence of talking with his game system took less than one second to occur, thus the onlookers would not have been able to notice any difference in Favian''s mannerism. A translucent barrier suddenly formed around Favian, and the pressure, which was weighing him down, slowly started to subside, allowing him to get back up on his feet. ''Breath Favian, breath. Everything is gonna be fine. Let''s see if we can get some help here from this woman.'' Before he could even get any words out of his mouth, the dark-haired woman motioned him to come towards her and spoke, "Interesting. Already able to cast a novice barrier spell without speaking. Why don''t you come with me to the front of the carriages?" She paused, looking at the carriage which Favian had just come out of, and then replied, "The conditions will be a lot better with me, I''m sure you''re smart enough to assume." "Yes ma''am, it would be an honour." Favian replied, and gave a courteous bow, lowering his head all the way to his hips, still breathing heavily due to the punches to his stomach. This was the natural way for an individual to greet somebody from a much higher standing than oneself in this country, according to Favian''s memories of his body''s former owner. "Oh, and he even has some manners, unlike these pieces of filth on the floor here. I am starting to like you more and more young man. Now, why don''t we move to somewhere quieter" she said, smiling towards Favian. Without waiting for Favian to reply, she grabbed him around the waist and hoisted him around her shoulders, proceeding to fly off into the air at a terrifying speed. The feeling of being this high in the air without a parachute left him frightened, making him close his eyes shut tightly. He felt completely powerless from the moment he woke up in this weird new world, and he didn''t wish to be powerless anymore. It had only been a couple of minutes but Favian already resolved in his mind to learn as much as he could so that he wouldn''t ever have to feel like he had no control in his life again. After roughly a minute Favian felt himself slowly descend towards the ground. Having mused up the courage to open his eyes, he was met by some of the most beautiful scenery he had ever seen. Next to a waterfall filled with some of the most pristine water imaginable, a campfire illuminated the dark campsite where multiple carriages had stopped to rest for the night. Smoke slowly drifted up from the campfire, and the surroundings were littered with tall pine trees, standing unnaturally tall at roughly 60 meters. The snow which covered these led to an even more unique feel to the area, and the bustle of various people chatting added to the inviting feeling he received from this place. After landing on the ground, Favian was brought into a rather large tent by the dark-haired lady. After exchanging pleasantries and asking about the different academies, Favian found out that her name was Aria, a magic instructor from the Dusk Academy. She explained to him that all individuals would be asked to go through some quick preliminary testing when they reached their destination in a couple of days, and that this testing would simply be to gauge every initiates magical potential. The higher a person''s magical potential, the more offers they would receive from various academies. Magical potential could be increased through the usage of various potions and herbal concoctions, thus those individuals from noble backgrounds had an inherent advantage when it came to securing offers. Not only did they have such potions to increase their intelligence, which would in turn increase their mana pools and magical capability, however those of noble standing would usually have instructors who taught them magic from their childhood. As academies only accepted individuals from 14 years of age and upwards, this was already a 14-year advantage that they had on Favian. After their conversation ended, Aria brought Favian to a small tent near the campfire and motioned for him to go in. "You should probably go to sleep for now, it''s already gotten really dark, and you definitely look like you need some rest. Come look for me first thing in the morning, I''ve got something important that I want to talk to you about." Aria said and smiled at Favian before walking back towards her own tent. ''This is so weird, why is she being so nice to me? I mean I won''t complain but I bet that whatever she wants to talk about in the morning will have something to do with her unnatural kindness to me.'' Favian thought to himself. Having been 22 years old in his previous life, Favian obviously was much more mature than all of the other youths that were going to the magic academies. This would give him an edge, he thought to himself, as he already knew how to work hard on command in order to accomplish his goals; especially since he went to medical school, where you would rarely get a break from studying or hands on practice. Looking in the reflection of a mirror placed in his tent, Favian could finally see what he looked like. He had very dark hair, with some hues of purple spread across, which fell onto his shoulders. His eyes were similarly peculiar, as they were a dark brown but would move towards a more purple colour whenever he focused more intently at them. ''Must be an effect of the magic in my body or something'' he thought to himself. He had a pretty toned body due to the relentless working out that his former owner used to put himself through. Yet, his body malnourished and sickly. His owner would never know, but he died to overexerting himself in training, as he, similar to the Favian currently inhabiting his former body, wanted more power. Favian knew that he couldn''t make the same mistakes this body''s former inhibitor did, and luckily for him, Favian had a living cheat code for himself. ''Interface open up and show me my current stats'' [Ding! Name: Favian. Race: Human. Gender: Male. Constitution: 0.6, Strength: 0.8, Intelligence 2.4, Agility 0.6, Arcana 1. Mana pool 90 (100) points remaining] A blue screen popped up in front of Favian''s eyes, and he could see all the stats related to his body, along with an in-depth anatomical view of his own body and explanations of every stat. Here he could see that his body urgently needed an increased gain of nutrition, as a constitution of only 0.6 relayed that his body was 40% less able to combat against disease and fatigue than a regular human, who would be at a stat of 1. Similarly, his strength and agility were low, as a weak constitution would shackle how strong or agile a person could get, regardless of how much they trained. Yet, his intelligence was at 2.4, and he was therefore more than two times smarter than any regular individual. This may partly have been due to his reincarnation, which allowed him to keep all of his previous memories on anatomy and the medical practice. The arcana stat was the most confusing one there. It seemed that this stat was what controlled his total mana points, with a conversion of 1 arcana to 100 mana. Arcana could be permanently used up in order to learn certain spells or to convert into one of his other stats, however when Favian asked the system how to gain arcana it simply replied with an error. [Error, host knowledge not high enough to access this information. Host needs to level up arcana knowledge (50 experience required). Would host like to level up arcana knowledge?] ''What? I should have expected this when I realised you were from the World of Exile system, using up all my hard-earned experience.'' Favian furrowed his eyebrows as he came onto this realisation. ''Well, I mean I didn''t actually do anything but call for help and was rewarded with 50 experience points earlier so it''s not exactly a loss now that I think about it''. Looking at the blue screen, Favian forced himself to press onto the ''level up arcana knowledge +'' button. 3 Proposition [Ding! Arcana Knowledge Level 1 acquired. Current Exp 0. Arcana is the broad overview of different magical particles in the atmosphere. These different magical particles are comprised of their different elements, namely air, water, fire, earth, light and dark particles. Information on advanced particles currently unavailable. Affinity to different particles is based by innate body composition. Arcana can be drawn into your body via meditation techniques.] ''Well that was insightful and all, but I don''t know any meditation techniques right now, so how am I going to draw in arcana?'' [Ding! User can activate automatic arcana assembly via the system, which will gather elemental particles passively. Would user like to activate function now?] ''YES DO IT.'' Favian screamed at the system in his mind. He was so engrossed in gaining power and was also interested in the workings of magic. He wanted to soak up all this information like a sponge. A numbing sensation slowly took over Favian''s body and mind, making him momentarily lose all the feeling in his legs, making him to fall down onto the bedroll in the middle of the tent. Wide eyed Favian looked around the room as he could now see a plethora of different coloured particles in his vicinity, with there being various different colours. Mainly there were dark particles, brown particles and blue particles. ''Hmm, if I would take a guess, I''d say that there are more dark particles here as it is night-time, and blue particles would probably represent the water element; since I am near a waterfall there would obviously be lots of that element here.'' Suddenly, a swirl of these different elements rushed into his body. It felt as if he was being force fed food after having already been full, and left his body feeling ice cold. His whole body was now too desensitised to move about, and his mind slowly started to fade into black. All of the troubles from the past couple of hours were completely wiped away, and he was finally at peace, even if only for a short while. ... Favian woke up to the sounds of birds chirping away in the trees. These high-pitched chirps were relentless and made Favian feel like ripping out his eardrums. His sleep had been such euphoria; having his dream of eating pizza and donuts back on Earth end abruptly because of the birds left him feeling annoyed. Opening the game system, Favian''s eyes instantly opened wide, as he could not believe what he was seeing. His arcana had risen by a whole 0.2 points, and was now at a 1.2 total. A 20 percent increase overnight seemed too crazy for him to believe. It was no wonder that his whole body currently still felt numb, as he must have gone through a relatively large change. ''Wait, I don''t even know what my arcana level is relative to other mages, so this might not even be as impressive as I think. I''ll have to try and gather data on some other trainees first to see where I stand'' he thought to himself. ''Is that possible system?'' [Ding! Affirmative, user can scan other people but is currently only able to scan those of a equal or lower power level than himself. To upgrade scan function host needs to upgrade the game system - Version 1 (10,000 experience required)] Favian almost coughed up blood. He couldn''t believe how much experience he needed. It seemed that he would have to come back to this issue in the future, as he currently did not know how his system worked in regard to giving experience, and it would only reply with ''Information restricted'' when prompting it for the information. After reclaiming his bearings, he went straight towards Aria''s tent as she had asked him to come talk to her first thing in the morning. A table filled with plates and cups of different foods was placed in the dark red tent within which Aria stayed. The sweet aroma of jasmine green tea mixed with honey lifted up Favian''s mood completely, and the fragrances from the tent seemed to sooth his body and mind. Aria looked to be around 24 years of age, with a relatively slim build with wide hips, and a big bust. Taking time to look at her better with the sunlight shining through the tent, Favian was able to notice that her eyes had a similar purple shade just like his own, however it was much deeper in colour. The dark purple hue to her brown eyes, along with her jet-black hair really complimented her fair skin, and she looked a lot more beautiful to him in the sunlight. After noticing that he had been staring at her for a moment too long without saying anything he quickly shifted his gaze towards the food. ''Damn, it must be these teenage hormones affecting my mind right now. You give me the memories from my past and still force me to feel like a prepubescent teenager. That''s just perfect!'' *Grumble* *Grumble* "Come sit, lets chat whilst we eat. It sounds like you could use some food Favian, and negotiations are always better on a full stomach. Something my master always used to say to me." Aria motioned for him to come sit down at the table. "Now, I noticed earlier that you were able to cast a protective barrier when I used my magic to increase gravity. As we have done extensive research on every candidate, I know that you have never learnt any magic. Would you mind explaining how you were able to use that spell without casting?" she asked him, her eyebrows raised up in interest of this young boy. Her gaze looked straight into his eyes, and Favian felt it piercing straight through his soul. ''Shit! How am I going to explain that I reincarnated and have a game system which is basically a massive cheat, whilst also not becoming a lab rat for some academy''s experiments. I should probably lie, but I bet she has some sort of magic which can detect that. Guess I''ll have to just twist the truth a little bit'' he thought to himself as the panic that was slowly trickling onto his face subsided after he quickly thought through what to say. "Well, I don''t completely know how, but my body just automatically did that. I had no control in the casting process of the spell. I don''t actually know any spells either, and am completely new to this world of magic, so it came to a surprise to me as well." Favian replied, weaving in truths that could be interpreted in different ways. He hoped that this would be enough to make her believe him, or at least stop her from asking any further. Aria slowly pondered to herself for a minute, before finally saying, "That is very interesting. I would think then that you have a very high innate talent in magic passed down from your bloodline. It''s such a shame that we have no information about who your parents are, maybe that would have given us a greater insight." She paused for a moment, before asking, "Do you know about how we rank magical talent at the academies here in Ortu Solis?" "No." Favian replied, shrugging his shoulders in defeat. Aria went on to explain that testing trainee magicians'' ability to draw in elemental particles was how they ranked magical talent grades. The colours red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and grey would correspond to the arcane core present in the body when tested, with red being the lowest and grey consisting of the highest talent. "Favian I have a proposition from the Dusk Academy. Since I am guessing that you have pretty high innate talent, given by the fact that you were able to subconsciously cast magic silently without ever having been taught, I would like to invite you to join the academy as my student." She smiled as Favian, with a gleam in her eyes. Favian cursed in his mind that he had to be reborn in such a young body. This beautiful woman was exactly his type, and even wanted to teach him. "Oh, let me not get ahead of everything, why don''t you let me test your magical talent grade first. It''ll just take a couple of seconds. Don''t worry, it won''t hurt. Just sit tight and get comfortable for a second." Without the time to even react, Favian felt pins and needles all over his body, prickling through the surface of his skin. The uncomfortable feeling left as quickly as it came, with tendrils of blackish indigo energy being released from his pores and dispersing into the atmosphere. After these tendrils of energy left his body, Favian felt a lot more stable, as if he had unclogged his pores from dirt that had always been stuck in them. The elemental particles from the atmosphere moved into his body now, which they had only done after he asked his system to do so. Now it seemed that they passively entered, and the lethargic feeling from the last time did not come. With her mouth wide open in shock, Aria could not help but feel that she finally hit the jackpot. The only word she could muster out was, "Incredible." 4 Attention Aria could not believe that in this scrawny young man, there was the potential to create a magnificent magician. It was already widely known that only that only 1 in 1 thousand individuals was capable of practicing magic. The majority of these individuals would belong to those with almost no talent, only having a red arcane core. It was already extremely rare to find individuals with talent above a green core, and these people would be groomed and treated with care by the academies. They wished to nurture strong and capable magicians, who would in turn have some form of vested interest in the academy after they left and became some of the most powerful beings on the continent. A grey arcane core was impossible to find, it could only be read about in myths. It has been said that any person with a grey core would ascend the shackles of mortality and would inevitably ascend towards godhood. "You are one fascinating boy Favian. I honestly can''t believe that I found such a diamond in the rough. I will do my best to polish you up and make an extraordinary magician out of you" Aria said, her eyes twinkled at the prospect of being known as the teacher to a purple core student. For her job reputation and security as a professor at the Dusk Academy, Favian would serve to be her greatest asset if she could nurture him properly. "Before you even think about gloating to others or rejoicing about having such immense talent in magic, I warn you. This is a path you should never tread on lightly. You will still have to put in blood, sweat and tears in order to become a full-fledged magician. Talent is only one part of the equation, and hard work is definitely the spine that stabilizes it." She lectured on, making sure that she wouldn''t allow for Favian to be a procrastinator who only knew to flaunt his talent without being able to back it up. Favian replied solemnly to her concern, "I will work hard, I promise. I am no stranger to persevering against adversity, and don''t plan on letting this get to my head." Favian thought back towards the memories of his body''s former host struggling to get enough food to eat, and having to beg on the street near his orphanage just to survive. The agony that such an existence was acted as a source of power for Favian to strive for greatness. He resolved himself to never beg again in his life. "So, will you take up my offer and study under me at the Dusk Academy? We specialize in dark magic and usually protocol would be to also test your elemental affinity with dark energy particles, however it seems that you are pretty welcoming to them." Aria spoke. After taking in all of this new information, Favian decided that it would be best to get a guaranteed place at an academy with a seemingly nice professor as his master. Of course, he couldn''t be sure whether she had any ulterior motives, but it seemed like the right decision to make, lest he be put on the spot for taking the places from some rich nobles who would just come looking for revenge. "I would love to learn under your instruction. Thank you very much, Master Aria." Favian felt that his chances at succeeding in life would only go up from here. ... After breakfast with his new master, Favian and Aria were back on the trail to arrive at the meeting point of the various academy representatives. Instead of a horse-drawn carriage, as Favian had woken up in after being reincarnated, Aria instead had her carriage drawn by a pair of lion like spirit beasts. These two identical creatures stood 8-feet tall whilst on all fours, and had a dark red mane which gave them a menacing look. Their black skin also added to their fearful aura. Even their speed would lead to onlookers shaking in fear, as they were big, bulky and nimble. You wouldn''t notice this 300 kg monster run up behind you before it had your head lodged between its sharp fangs. It seemed that on the Ortu Solis continent, there were large swathes of spirit beast ranges which housed a plethora of beasts that had been bolstered by magical energy. These beasts were even able to gain sentience if they had lived long enough and absorbed enough energy. It was widely known that a spirit beast on the same power level as a human would be a lot stronger. The reason behind this was unknown, but some hypothesized that there were simply more dense particles of magical energy surrounding these beast ranges, which resulted in more powerful fighters. Favian would occasionally stare outside the windows of the carriage and take in all of the scenery. It was simply immeasurable how ecstatic he felt looking at the passing mountains, rivers, trees and lakes. After having sat in the carriage for more than 8 hours, the snowy climate started to fade away and a humidity rose in the air. Plains stretched out as far as he could see, and the sun boiled away at the surface. The inside of the carriage stayed the same temperature it had this whole time, almost perfect. Not too cold and not too hot. It seemed as if there was some magical form of air conditioning placed here. ''Magic truly seems to be useful. Conjuring water when you are thirsty. Creating fire at a campsite, even air conditioning.'' ¡­ About an hour away from the plains was yet another change in scenery. The plains slowly turned into a woodland packed with shrubs and high standing trees. The air was very dense in oxygen, and it took a while to get used to breathing in this air. A silent voice called out in the clearing, "How much longer until they will pass through here?" Hesitation was apparent in the voice. A louder, more authoritative voice boomed out of the foliage, clearly irritated by his fellow companion. "They''ll be here within the hour. All you have to do is sit tight and wait for just a little longer. You can''t be telling me that you want to back out now? After we already took the down payment?" "That''s not what I meant, of course I won''t back out." The reply rang out with a even more silent voice. "Good. Don''t forget to signal to the others once they have passed by. We have to make sure with precise timing to only steal what we have come to steal. We don''t want to get chased into death. We are thieves not idiots!" their conversation ended with the two men sitting back in the foliage, waiting for their prey to enter their trap. ¡­. Favian woke up from a short nap to the view of his master meditating. Sitting opposite to him, with her legs crossed and her arms relaxed by her sides, she concentrated to gather energy particles into her frame. From the angle that he was looking from, Favian thought to himself that this truly was the most beautiful woman he had every laid eyes on. Feeling a blush run onto his face, he quickly snapped his focus towards the window. He could make out that they were now travelling through a dense forest pathway, with green being the predominant colour that could be seen. [Ding! User surrounded by hostile forces in a 3 kilometre radius. It is suggested to vacate the current area, host is no match to the enemies] With a loud thud Favian''s body was flung forward onto the floor. The sudden notification from the system startled him completely. ''Shit, how many of them are there in the vicinity? And how strong are they?'' Favian exclaimed in his mind, wanting to get the details as quickly as possible. [Ding! System approximates there to be between 10 and 20 hostiles in the vicinity. Error! System is not complex enough to show how strong the targets are. Host required to upgrade the game system - Version 1 (10,000 experience required)] Clearly irritated with the bad news the system had to give him, Favian cursed to himself. It seemed that a fight was going to break out in any moment, and he had nothing to protect him. No weapons, no magic, nothing. ''Wait, what am I saying. Master Aria is right here, and she knows magic. I should be safe as long as I stay close to her'' this train of thought calmed him down, as he looked at the face of his protector. Almost as if she was a saint sent to save him, Aria opened her eyes, waking up from her nap. All that she could see was Favian lying on the floor looking upwards at her. This was definitely not the most attractive of angles as Favian could clearly make out her undergarments from here. Before she could reprimand Favian for his disrespectful behaviour, a loud bang resounded in the air. BANG BANG BANG 5 Wit and Fire It only took a single moment to transform the quiet, tranquil forest into an explosion of chaos. Smoke bellowed into the air, wafting through trees and fauna. The oxygen in the air was thinned out to the point that in every breath, smoke would fill the lungs of Favian. A raging inferno crept into the vicinity, and all the trees in the vicinity were slowly being turning charred. Screams of panic could be heard from the distance, and all of the wildlife fled from the scene, hoping to keep their lives. ''Holy s**t, what is going on?'' panic washed over Favian as he stared out of the window. Even though he had worked many long hours at his medical school, and seen many disfigured victims of accidents, he had never himself been placed into a setting which could only be likened to a natural disaster. His mind went blank, and he froze, unable to even lift a finger. Out of the corner of his eyes however, he could barely make out a shadowy figures rushing to a carriage not too far away from his. The smokescreen caused by the forest fire blurred his vision by an amount, and he couldn''t make out exactly where this shadow disappeared to. "Favian, stay in the carriage. I''ll go check out what''s going on." Aria was calm, not fazed at all. She looked outside, her gaze the embodiment of tranquillity, however beneath this, it could be noticed that there was a storm bubbling. It truly was the calm before the storm. The would-be recipient of her wrath should run as far away as they could, because Aria would be ruthless. Slowly, Aria left the carriage and proceeded to fly off into the air. Had Favian blinked, then he would have missed her soaring off completely. [Ding! 1 hostile figure spotted 15 metres to the northeast. New quest available. Would host like to receive quest ''Stealing from thieves'' ¨C 500 experience reward?] Favian contemplated for a moment, and decided to press ''Accept'' to receive the quest. Even though there was the danger of this enemy figure being stronger than himself, he didn''t know how many quests his game system would give him, or how else he could currently make experience. ''I need to question the system later as to how I can make more experience.'' ''Without risks, there won''t be any rewards'' he thought to himself. If he could see that he won''t be able to steal from this thief, he would immediately run to the safety of the carriage. He wanted to gather some experience, not die. Favian left the carriage, and slowly started walking in the direction given to him by the game system. Smoke obscured his vision, and every time he breathed in, he could feel his insides heating up. After walking very slowly towards the location, making sure to be as quiet and alert as possible, Favian reached what seemed to be a wagon. The wagon was huge, approximately 30 feet in length, 10 feet in width and another 10 feet in height. Where there should have been horses which accompanied the wagon and carried it on the journey, there was now only empty space and hooves prints. The doors to the wagon were open wide and unhinged to the side, as if they were forcibly opened and broke a lock. As Favian moved closer to the entrance of the wagon, he could hear scurried footsteps. A man dressed completely in black was visible to Favian. Favian could make out that the man, who''s back was facing him, was wearing a black mask which covered his whole face. He looked like the ninjas which Favian had always seen on T.V. and in video games. With a frustrated growl, the ninja looking figure exclaimed, "In the name of Eris where is this book? If I had known it would be this much of a hassle, I would''ve just stayed at home." He seemed agitated, not noticing Favian behind him precisely due to his anger. He kept moving from shelf to shelf of items, throwing down bottles and tonics of liquids to vent out his frustration. Shattered glass littered the space in front of him. Favian had no martial arts experience, and didn''t know any magical spells. He could only rely on his game system right now to give him the most effective strategy right now. ''System, what spells are currently available to me right now?'' he asked hoping for some good news. [Ding! Host can cast innate spell barrier for 10 mana points. Other spells currently unavailable, knowledge on spell casting is lacking] ''S**t!'' it was exactly as he had thought. Just because he had been reborn with magical talent didn''t mean he suddenly had access to all the spells in the world. ''I need to think of a plan ASAP. If I can somehow get this person to run away, I''ll probably have enough time to get to whatever this game system wants me to steal'' he thought to himself. Favian didn''t have enough time to think about a good enough plan that would definitely succeed. Since the whole forest was on fire, he decided to go with some arson. Picking up a log of burning wood nearby, he proceeded to throw it into the wagon. As soon as he threw it inside, he hid in some foliage that had yet to start burning. ''F**k it''s getting really hot here. Can you get out of there quickly buddy. I need whatever it is you haven''t found yet.'' sweat dripped down his forehead as he waited in anticipation for the thief to get out of the wagon. A whole minute went by without any noise from inside the wagon; the thief still hadn''t left yet. Feeling that something was wrong, and not wanting to wait for the whole wagon to burn down because of him attempting to start a fire, Favian snuck towards its doors again. The sight he was met by left him surprised. Knocked out unconscious on the floor was the thief. His head was pushed against a cupboard, with a burning log of wood having gained fire from some clothes. The flame was still small; however, it would only be a matter of minutes before the whole area inside would become a furnace. [Ding! Achievement unlocked, Accidental Knockout. 250 experience received. Total experience 250] "What the ¡­ What''s up with these weird accomplishment?" Favian couldn''t help but speak out to himself. The achievements he received seemed way too specific and weird. He didn''t have the time to wonder about these things, so he sprinted inside near the unconscious man. After checking to make sure that he really was out, Favian then started rummaging through the items around him. There were bars of gold, silver and copper, vials and clothing. There was also a shelf filled with different books. Not knowing what he was looking for, he resorted to asking the game system. ''What is it I''m looking for? Or where can I find it?'' [Ding! Object is on the bookshelf, fifth to the right on the third shelf.] Quickly, he found what he was looking for. A worn-down antique book, which was labelled ''Darkness and Shadows''. ''Seems like a cult book or some satanic tome'' Favian thought. The book was dark purple, and had various images on its cover depicting some form of symbol which he couldn''t make out. The book was really thick, however after flipping through it quickly, he could see that not even half of it was visible. Its age had left a mark on it, rubbing out a lot of the writing in it. The small flame to the side of the wagon had started to flare up into a huge inferno, and the temperature increased suddenly to the point that Favian couldn''t stay any longer with the risks it posed to his health. With a sad look around at all the valuables strewn around, he ran out and back towards Aria''s carriage. Something Favian hadn''t notice at first, was her carriage seemed to have some form of immunity to fire, as in a radius of roughly 5 meters no flames could affect any of the trees or foliage. As he jumped inside, a new notification popped up into his mind. [Ding! Quest completed ''Stealing from thieves'', 500 experience awarded; User was able to find the treasure which the thieves attempted to steal. Total experience 750.] ''Interface can you show me how many hostiles are left in a 500-metre vicinity, and show me the location of Aria.'' He commanded his system. He was hoping to find somewhere to hide this valuable book before she came back. [Ding! No hostiles in a 500-metre radius. Location of Aria is 2 kilometres to the west] the game system replied, with its usual monotonous AI voice. 6 Learning Magic Letting none of his time go to waste, Favian searched for a suitable location to hide the book on the carriage. There were some shelves here and there, and under the seats there was also some space, however these places all couldn''t be any further away from concealed and hidden. Finding nowhere on board to put the book away, Favian sighed dejectedly, having given up. Deciding that he might as well just try to read as much of the book as possible before it inevitably being taken away by his master, he flipped open the first page. In unclear writing, he could see that this was a table of contents. From the table of contents, he navigated himself to one chapter which particularly caught his eye, ''The unknown magic''. His curiosity had been piqued. ''What would constitute as an unknown magic?'' he asked himself. Would it be some forbidden magic or some really useless magic like turning chickens into geese, he wondered. [Ding! Would user like the game system to scan book ''Darkness and Shadows''? Required function Object Scanning 1 ¨C Required experience 250. Allows host to scan objects in the world to find out their properties, contents and functions. Higher levels allow host to scan objects without the need to touch them.] ''Huh, that''s interesting. I mean this should allow me to pretty much know all the details about anything in my hand, which will probably come in handy.'' Thinking about it, Favian didn''t hesitate to purchase this new function, as it seemed like it would be a very important tool for his use in the future. [Ding! Purchase successful, Object Scanning 1 acquired. Total Experience 500.] the game system replied. As the notification beeped, a huge influx of information entered Favian''s mind. His brain felt like thousands of tiny ants were burrowing through it, leaving it itchy and irritated for almost half a minute afterwards. As the uncomfortable sensation slowly left, all of the information from the book was very clear in his mind, almost as if he had read through it a hundred times. He could even recite it word for word if he wanted to. Favian''s eyes widened as he thought to himself, ''That''s just amazing. I always heard about people with photographic memory, it must be similar to what I have just experience. Well fortunately for me, I don''t even need to open every page of the book, I just need to touch it and my game system will scan everything for me.'' The information of the book was sorted into the different chapters, and the game system even left a brief overview and conclusion to the book. Irrelevant information such as repeated info was completely removed, and the data was left in Favian''s mind as concisely as possible. ''Seems like this book is an introduction to dark and shadow magic. They are two different types of magic; however shadow magic is almost completely unknown of. I wonder why?'' he asked himself. The book described that dark magic was the use of dark energy particles in order to cast spells. These spells would usually consist of necrotic energy, which was considered as nefarious and foul by the larger part of the continent ¨C according to the information given in the book. Thus, usually dark magic was only used for research purposes into the afterlife and the workings of the spirit. Necromancers, witches and warlocks were all advanced classes based on dark magic, and a person could learn any of these professions if they were sufficiently gifted in the absorption of dark energy particles. Besides the point that these profession were frowned upon in the continent of Ortu Solis, there were also such a rare number of individuals who were gifted in the absorption of the particles required for dark magic. The book outlined that magicians were divided into different realms of power, namely individuals were ranked based on 1-9, with 1 being the level an apprentice magician would gain after a year of study, and 9 being the highest power level available. Each of these levels was divided into lower, inner and upper realms, with each advancement of minor realms granting a substantial increase in power. An individual like Favian was not yet a Rank 1 magician, he was only an initiate as he was gifted in talent to be able to learn magic. Shadow magic was also described in the book, as a type of magic completely independent of the 6 other elements. Shadow magic was noted down as being the fusion of dark and light magic, however the ability to cast it was independent on talent in either of those magic types. ''That would make sense I guess'' Favian thought. ''In order for a shadow to be present, light needs to be shining. Without darkness or light, a shadow can''t exist''. Mages that followed the path of shadow magic had a clear disadvantage. They could not study any other magic types except for dark, light and shadow. This was a pretty big disadvantage as it would mean that flying was out of the picture for Favian were he to study this. Or creating fire for a campfire. Or conjuring water to quench his thirst. However, the author noted that the power and utility that shadow magic possessed should not be looked down upon. Favian had a hard choice to make. He could either wait until he got to the academy, and find a suitable element to study in, or he could decide to bolster his own power no from the get-go at the cost of other elements. Thinking hard about it, he decided that studying shadow magic was the right choice. Since rarely anybody even knew it existed, it could be his ace in the hole should he ever need it. Having cards hidden under your sleeves is always better than it being known exactly what type of magic you can cast. ''System, can you automatically learn all available spells for me at my current level automatically, or do I have to learn them myself?'' he questioned the system. [Ding! Affirmative. A total of 3 spells are available to you, as you are currently at lower initiate level. Spells available ¨C Necrotic touch, Bend light, and Net of Shadows can be learned. Estimated time to completion, 24hours.] It replied. ''Okay since that is sorted, I''m just going to hand off the book to Aria, and hope for the best since I don''t need it anymore. I''ll tell her everything that happened, since still don''t think lying is the way to go here. I''ll just avoid the part about me burning down the wagon. I might even get a reward if I''m lucky'' he thought to himself. Meticulous planning had always been part of Favian''s routine. He had to juggle the enormous amounts of time at medical school with his own love for gaming and sports. If he had more time in the day available back on Earth, he might even have gotten himself a girlfriend. Only roughly 10 minutes had passed since Favian came back to Aria''s carriage, but he had already been able to completely learn the book and plan what his next move was. Most of this was attributed to his personality of always finding the method which would yield the quickest results, and it somehow seemed that after just one cycle of meditation his mind was already working at a quicker pace than usual. It also goes without saying that the game system gave him a complete advantage that no other person would ever have. After another 15 minutes, the fires outside were snuffed out completely. The chaos outside seemed to settle down, but the marks were left. Trees in a huge radius of almost half a kilometre were charred to cinders. No wildlife could be seen in the vicinity, which gave the surroundings an eerie quietness. The air smelt sickly sweet, a very confusing aroma after what had just transpired. Many fallen trees blocked the path that was usable for the carriages, and it would take another hour before these could be cleared away with the help of everybody else. Only a few number of actual magicians were at the scene, and they all had a certain pride about themselves that wouldn''t let them take part in menial labour such as clearing out a pathway. Thus, all of the magician initiates and the drivers and merchants put in the work to get everything back into order. After this was cleared away, the journey continued. In the aftermath of the scene, there was a hooded figure hovering about 2 kilometres in the air, looking down site. The figure talked into a communication device, which was hung against their collar, in the shape of a two back to back half-moon crescents, parted in the middle by a thick line. After spending a short moment examining the location, and casting an unknown spell, the figure darted away towards the location which Favian was also travelling to. 7 Improvemen Warm rays of sun shone down from the sky, heating up and illuminating a large clearing on a mountain cliff. The mountain cliff spanned a kilometre, and fauna was littered across. Bees buzzed across the mountain, pollinating the area in return for sweet nectar. Butterflies danced together in pairs as they flew around aimlessly. An intoxicating atmosphere was given off by the animals and plants in the vicinity, and the summer weather only added to the inviting nature of the area. The joyful and carefree vibe that should have been acting like a contagion to any life in the area, was starkly contrasted by grim faces filled with exhaustion. After a long journey filled with unexpected setbacks, all of the initiate mages had finally reached their destination; a dead end. After the cliff there was only a drop that would last for ages. Exhaustion was exchanged with confusion after they reached here. All of the initiates could be easily made out, as they were all no older than 16, and no younger than 14. Favian himself was currently 15 years old, with a pretty average height and average build. You wouldn''t be able to notice him in a crowd because of how average he looked, despite the purple hues his hair contained. Had he been given more nutrition at the orphanage, then he would have been a lot taller, and instead of a height of 175cm, he would have been about 190cm. Groups of friendships had already been formed by many of the kids here, with them lending each other mental support throughout the arduous journey. However, there were five individuals littered around who similarly to Favian, were stood next to a professor from an academy. These were easily identified as having good enough potential to immediately be taking under the wing of a full-fledged mage. ''System, bring up my stats.'' Favian ordered nonchalantly in his mind. [Ding! Constitution: 0.8, Strength: 1.0, Intelligence 2.8, Agility 0.8, Arcana 1.4. Mana pool 140] Favian had continuously been monitoring his stats ever since his first session of meditation. Another five days had passed in which he meditated whenever he had the free time. ''My intelligence and arcana have both increased by 0.4 points, and my strength, constitution and agility have increased by 0.2 points each. It seems that my first ever meditation had a much stronger effect on my body in a single go, however I am still increasing in power pretty rapidly'' he thought to himself. His constitution and agility were still under the level of an average man; however, it would only take some more time for his body to become booming with vitality. He could feel that the more he ate and the more he meditated and worked-out, his body was steadily becoming the stable foundation he would need to become a potent magician. ''Bring up the information on my spells.'' [Ding! Innate Protective Shield ¨C (Level 1), can sustain tiny amounts of damage before being rendered useless. Necrotic touch (Level 2) ¨C 30 mana. Laces palms in dark energy which will speed up the death of any living cells being touched. Bend light (Level 4) ¨C 10 mana. Refract light waves in a 5-meter vicinity of host. Net of shadows (Level 4) ¨C 70 mana. Coat an object within a 60-metre radius in a viscous net made out of shadow energy.] the system chirped monotonously. Looking at his current list of spells, Favian felt proud at how much progress he was able to make with them in such a short time span. The game system could not improve the spells he gained, and only he himself could increase their effectiveness with hard training until he was able to gather enough experience to make his system undergo an upgrade. His spells were limited in their uses, however, could still be used effectively as long as a good plan was thought out by Favian. His most powerful spell was his Net of Shadows, however it costed half of his whole mana pool to cast. He had used it multiple times to catch some rabbits, however each use would leave him worn out. On the other hand, bend light seemed a lot more like a utility spell, and its uses could come in handy if he needed to quickly distract his opponents. Necrotic touch seemed pretty useless to him. It was a spell that required his target to be within punching distance of him, which didn''t seem like it would be likely to occur with his current skillset and body stats. Spells of a higher level from the book he discovered were currently locked until he reached upper initiate level. The book did bring more boons to him as he had expected. Aria had been pleased with his finding of the book, and didn''t even bother questioning him on the subject of how he found it. She was more than willing to take it out of his hands for ''safe-keeping''. Favian believed that she would probably go on to sell it to the academy, however this didn''t matter to him a tiny bit. As long as it was out of his hands, he didn''t have to fear for his life over it. Aria had even been so pleased with the book that she fed him some magical herbs which had resulted in the increase of his body''s vital stats . *strength, agility and constitution will be known as the vital stats* Aria was currently stood tall next to Favian, enjoying the weather and the wildlife surrounding her. She would usually spend most of her time meditating in the carriage, however Favian noticed that ever since the attack on their travel group happened, she would spend the nights acting as a sentry for the camp. She did not seem fatigued at all, and her skin looked as flawless as it always did. Her face lit up in smile suddenly, as she joyfully exclaimed, "They''re here. Took them long enough". Electrical currents surged through the air, and it abruptly became very windy. The heavens aggressively parted as a group of figures warped into existence in the clouds 100 meters upwards from the clearing in the cliff. Slowly these figures moved down to the ground in their own unique ways. One lady, with bright blue hair was the epitome of calmness, and levitated towards the ground as if she were strolling through her back garden. Conversely, a boulder of a man with striking flames of red hair soared to the ground like a meteor, creating a small crater as he landed. "Attention everyone. We, the big 6 academies would like to thank you all for making the voyage here to Culling''s Cliff. We know that the journey hasn''t been easy, however the journey onwards for you all as a magician won''t be easy either. Many of you will not have what it takes to even graduate your first year, so we throw this initiation in order to strengthen your wills, and show you exactly how difficult it will be to become a master of magic." A bald old man, with a long grey beard, who had a slight hunch in his back boomed this message so that all roughly 1000 people present could hear. Despite how frail this man looked, Favian could sense that he was booming with vitality. "Your journey is only just beginning, is what my dear old friend Azul is trying to tell you all. Now, let us get this whole process over quickly, I know how much you all want to finally settle in the academy of your choice. Let me be clear with this. You will all have your magical talent assessed, if you haven''t already." As that last sentence left his lips, he quickly gave a glance to Favian and the 5 other individuals who seemed to be with professors of their own. "This testing process is to decide on the resources we will put into every individual student. You are free to choose from whichever academy you wish to join." He explained. Taking a closer look at all of the academy representatives that had just appeared here out of thin air, Favian could notice that there was a dwarf (the man who had just spoken), an elf (the calm lady with blue hair), and four men, which included the old man and the red-haired man with the oppressive aura. The two other men stood more inconspicuously to the back, making their presence unknown. A slow process of testing the talent of all the initiates took place, with them all waiting patiently in line for the school they wished to join.This process was completely foregone by Favian as he had already been chosen to be a part of the Dusk Academy, one of the big 6. Instead, Favian decided to bid his time by chatting with Aria. "So, you''ve finally decided to take on a student Aria? I''m impressed little one." A voice emerged out of nowhere. 8 Confrontation A woman slowly walked towards Aria and Favian. She came with an elegant sway in her movement, and made absolutely no noise as she walked over. Her long hair fell all the way to her waist, revealing obsidian curls from root to tip. A scar pierced across her face, starting from the left of her forehead, and extending all the way towards the left part of her lips. Without this scar she would have looked like a princess with her toned cheekbones and her naturally pouted lips, which were covered in dark red lipstick. Favian could faintly make out that she was wearing some form of amulet under her collar. Her attire was a robe adorned with jewellery and embroidered almost everywhere. Aria looked at her with disdain, ignoring her presence after giving her a glare. If stares could kill, then this woman would have already died a thousand times over. The animosity which Favian could feel was thick like coagulated blood. These two loathed each other. "Now now, no need to act so uninviting. I''m just here to introduce myself to your cute little student here. Well what''s your name?" she looked at Favian, waiting for a response. "F-Favian madam!" he replied quickly, lowering himself to a bow. The woman was quickly taken aback by Favian''s curtsy. He looked unassuming, and was still wearing tattered and worn-down clothes. He had yet to have the chance to change his look with a new wardrobe as Aria only had clothing appropriate for women in her closet. "My oh my, how adorable you are Favian. How unfortunate it is for a gentleman like you to be stuck with that poisonous witch." she spat. The elegant air to her vanished and was replaced with a venom. Aria was furious, blood boiled through her body and veins could be seen emerging on her face, giving her a ghastly appearance. Her snowy complexion was now filled to the brim with red. Energy undulated around her, and dark wisps started to circulate at a ferocious speed, aimed at none other than the lady with the scar. Suddenly a man warped in between Aria and the woman. Favian had blinked at the exact moment when it happened, and thus had been startled, falling to the floor. The moment the man entered the area, Aria''s channelling of magic dispersed. She quickly knelt to the ground, and so did the other woman. "Aria, Evelynn, what is the meaning of this?" he asked, his voice charged with authority. "Nothing Master Egast, we were just exchanging some pointers" Evelynn replied, after which she winked at Aria and Favian, and quickly scurried away. Egast was a rather tall and skinny man, who only looked to be in his mid-30s. He wore a charcoal coloured button up shirt, with its sleeves only reaching to his elbows, and he matched this with black trousers and polished black shoes. His attire looked like it came straight out of an aristocratic family from Earth''s Victorian England. He also possessed a long grey cane, which was adorned at the top with a skull head and rubies for its eyes. The scowl that had been present on his face was rather quickly replaced by a smirk after Evelynn had left, his eyes twinkled with a mischievous light. *Cough* "How I detest those brats from the Dawn Academy, always trying to one up us just because we are the big bad wolves using dark magic. If only they would realise that light and dark are just two sides of the same coin, then maybe they''d not be ranked last out of all of the Big 6." Egast mumbled on. "Oh Aria, didn''t see we had company there" his face blushed quickly, and he rubbed his head ashamedly after he noticed Favian standing up right behind Aria. "Don''t worry about that, this here is Favian." She spoke nonchalantly, having gotten up from her kneeling position. Aria seemed to have calmed down by a large amount, and the ferocious atmosphere around her dissipated. She moved closer to Egast and whispered in his ear, "He''s the one I sent messages about to the Academy, his magic core is indigo, but there''s some sort of irregularity in his core. It''s almost as if there are two different cores in his body, I was hoping you could figure out what is up with him." Favian tried hard to make out what they were discussing, but to no avail. After a couple of minutes of Aria and Egast talking with each other in hushed tones, they finally finished their conversation. Egast slowly walked towards Favian, and started to look him up and down. Favian became fidgety at how much he was being concentrated on in this moment. Suddenly the system in his mind rang out an alarm, and he could feel his whole body being pierced through. [Ding! Host being scanned by foreign object. Countermeasures unavailable.] Favian had no time to react, he could feel pins and needles in his brain, and a wave of exhaustion completely took him over. "Boy, let''s get going from here. It''s just going to get more boring the longer we wait around, so we''ll get you to the academy first along with Aria." Egast turned around and walked towards the edge of the cliff, with Favian and Aria walking close by his heels. As they moved towards the edge of the cliff, Favian noticed the different emotions on the various initiates'' faces. Some were ecstatic, jumping up in joy, whilst others were completely dejected, and looked like they wanted to jump down to an early death. Clearly making it into the academy with as many resources as possible meant a huge amount. Slowly Egast stopped about 2 metres away from the cliff''s edge. The ground in front of him was devoid of any grass, unlike the rest of the cliff. A huge symbol able to accommodate a whole horse was carved into the ground in black, with the symbol looking like a hieroglyphic of a sun, however a large black sun. The summer breeze was completely halted in the vicinity of this hieroglyphic, and the noise from the outside world stopped. "Favian, jump" Egast motioned for Favian to jump off the cliff. ''WHAT? Did I just hear that right?'' he screamed in his mind. "I''m sorry sir, I didn''t quite catch that, did you just say I should jump?" he asked, trying to verify whether he was just hearing things. Egast looked at Favian impatiently, and simply repeated his previous statement, however it sounded more like a command now, " Jump." Favian''s heart sunk. So, he did hear right, this crazy man wanted him to jump down into an early grave. Frozen to the spot, Favian couldn''t decide whether to run away or to actually jump. This choice however was taken out of his hands after he hesitated for too long. With what seemed like a gentle nudge at first, he was flung almost 3 metres forward into his impending doom. The ground beneath him disappeared, and his guts felt like they flew straight into his mouth. The sound of the wind rushing seemed to muffle his loud screams. His heart was beating in overdrive, and the urge to piss himself almost took over. With a THUD, Favian hit the ground. Instead of darkness as he would have imagined it would be like if he died again, Favian found himself to be in a dimly lit room. He quickly stood up, checking himself to see if he had broken anything, as the lack of pain left him confused. ''I''m somehow okay.'' He thought to himself. As he looked around the room however, his heart sank once again. He was currently surrounded by cell bars. Only dim light was able to illuminate the area, and he seemed to be inside some form of a cavern. The air was damp and musty, and dust formed around the cell bars. ''Fuck, where am I? Why am I in a prison cage?'' his thoughts sprinted as he tried to figure out what was happening. Did the Academy figure out that he was reincarnated, and they would now use him for their own perverted experiments? Did he die again and was reborn in another body? These questions continually went through his mind. A cackle erupted from within the cavern. A female voice echoed through the cave, " I finally have you alone here. I have been waiting for you to be separated from your little mentor". A hooded figure walked towards the cage Favian was stood in. He couldn''t make out what this person looked like under the hood, all he could tell was that the voice was very feminine, and that a necklace was hung from the persons collar. The symbol looked like two back to back half-moon crescents, parted in the middle by a thick line. An ominous aura was being given off by this symbol alone, and the longer he stared at the symbol, the more his mind fogged up. 9 A new ques Favian was suddenly snapped out of his delirium when the usual DING sound that his game system would make when it was sending him a notification. [Ding! User under influence of an unknown aura. It is suggested that user not look at the necklace being worn by the woman in front of you] Unlike usual, the game system almost seemed like a person here worried for his safety. Or maybe this was all just in his mind or part of some illusion Favian thought. The game system was artificial intelligence; therefore, it would have no consciousness nor emotions. Favian realised what sort of predicament he was currently in. He was trapped in a dungeon, alone, and was fully incapable of getting himself out of this ordeal. He hadn''t learnt enough magic to fair for himself, and even if he had, he doubted he would be able to escape from somebody who had been able to snatch himself away from the likes of Aria and Egast, who both oozed with the power he so craved. ''The best I can hope for is that somebody has noticed my disappearance. I''ll have to stall for time here.'' This was what Favian was pinning all his hopes on. If he could stall for time and somehow find an opening would be the best-case scenario for him. The other choice was to submit and probably become some slave to this crazy individual, or worse. Fear was gripping onto Favian, and his palms became sweaty; however, he was able to ask the person in front of him, "What do you want with me?" The mysterious figure did not answer until almost ten minutes passed. What ensued was a cacophony of laughter which did not stop until almost another ten minutes. This person had clearly gone crazy already, Favian thought, his knees weakening as he realised that trying to stall for time might not even be lucrative. Almost an hour had gone past and there were still no signs of rescue coming for him. Favian''s mood plummeted for the worst, and his face became dejected. He realised that whatever the case may be, he would probably rot to death here with this maniac of a person confining him. "I''m not a maniac." The female voice replied. She now looked at Favian and he could see her crystal blue eyes piercing through his soul. She slowly walked towards an altar, which was shaped to be a statue of a woman holding two moons in her hand. Chaotic energy undulated from within the statue, and the two moons were coloured black and red respectively, one a blood moon and the other a black moon. "The goddess is furious that you stole a precious asset away from us. The gall of a mortal like you, to sin against the one and only true ruler of this world. You shall not be forgiven" her voice resounded throughout the cavern, and rage was evident on her face. "You have two choices." She stopped talking, contemplating for a moment. Her icy blue eyes were far from inviting. "She has spoken. You will divulge all the information from the text you have stolen from her rightful ownership, or face imprisonment for eternity." A crazed smile was visible from beneath the hood; yet her face had still not been revealed. Favian was starting to feel completely helpless. It seemed that he had somehow managed to make enemies with a goddess within the first couple of days spent in this new life. Bad luck could not describe the predicament he was in right now. [Ding! New quest available: ''Escape time lock''. Your mind is currently being held hostage in a time-lock. Would user like to accept quest? ¨C 5000 experience reward] The rays of hope which Favian had been looking for finally descended towards him in the form of a quest. He knew from his previous life that video games would usually only give out quests which the players were currently able to carry out, and that there were hard level caps to acquiring them. This meant that somehow, he should be able to leave here alive. Favian tried to rack his brain as to how to allow his mind to escape this time locked zone. It seemed that his body was currently still falling from the cliff, however his mind was currently being held captive in a zone where time did not move forwards. Therefore, his body was fine for now, all he had to worry about was getting his mind back to his body. ''Usually in games there would be some sort of object or person which would need to be destroyed so that I could leave. Thinking about how great of a disparity in power I currently am in, I bet it is the former, and that I have to find some object to release me from here. But what is it?'' Favian had his hopes reignited after receiving the quest, and tried to piece the limited pieces of information together. His information stemmed solely from the game system and how clich¨¦ video games usually are. ''System are there any hints or tips you can give me right now to complete the quest?'' he quickly asked. Only a few seconds had currently passed since his jailer had given him his ultimatum, yet he didn''t want to keep her waiting too long, lest he ignite her wrath. He needed to find some answers quickly. [Ding! System can give a hint however this will cost 50% of the total experience yield from quest completion. Would host still wish to receive a hint?] it buzzed in his head. Before it even finished talking to Favian, the game system was interrupted by the loudest ''YES'' that Favian had yet shouted in his mind. [Ding! A sacred object of a goddess is currently trapping host in a time-lock. Find and destroy this object to complete quest ''Escape time lock'' ¨C 2500 experience reward] ''Of course'' Favian thought to himself, ''it must be the altar that is keeping me trapped here.'' Favian quickly realised what he needed to destroy, but he didn''t yet know how to destroy it. His only spells were bend light, net of shadows and necrotic touch. Bend light was an auxiliary spell that didn''t deal any direct damage, and net of shadows was a spell that only immobilized an object or entity. Necrotic touch was his best bet to destroy the altar, yet its range was only as far as his hand could touch. The altar was 5 metres away from his cell; thus, he had no means currently to destroy the object. Out of desperation, a plan slowly started to unravel in Favian''s mind. He needed every part of it to work perfectly or else he would most likely be eternally damned to corroding in this cell. He would need to have a lot of patience for it to work, and as his only option he decided to follow through with is wholeheartedly. ''I will definitely escape.'' he thought to himself with conviction. "I will comply with the request of your holiness. Please do have mercy on me, I did not mean to sin against the greatness that is your master." Favian spoke these words through gritted teeth and knelt on the floor in a kowtow motion. He knew that he needed to stay alive for as long as possible, and try to deceive this woman into thinking that he had already given up all hope of escaping. The woman looked less crazed now as she stared at Favian, trying to ascertain the whether he was speaking the truth. Seeing that this young boy looked to have given up any hope of fleeing, she smiled and brought out an empty book and an ink pen. "Write down everything you read in the book, and don''t even think about filling the pages with nonsense. There will be repercussions!" she exclaimed. After she passed him the items to write on, the woman took a step back towards the altar, and knelt down. The woman then removed the hood from covering her face and began to pray fervently at the altar. Favian could finally see the image of his captor, however what he saw completely dumbfounded him. ''Hadn''t I just met this person earlier today?'' he was utterly puzzle. Long hair fell all the way to her waist, revealing obsidian curls from root to tip. A scar pierced across her face extending all the way towards her lips. ''Isn''t that Evelynn?'' the shock in his mind was extreme, but after calming down he realised that the scar on this person''s face was on the opposite side to Evelynn''s. Hers had been on the left side of her face, whilst this woman''s was to the right side of her face. After ascertaining that this wasn''t Evelynn, Favian went on with writing down in the book he had been given. For now, he had no other choice except wait until his plan finally came into fruition. 1 year later¡­ 10 An eternity later 1 year had already passed by, with Favian stuck in his prison. Despite being locked within time, he found that he could still meditate and increase his magical capabilities. Favian spent a lot of time meditating and absorbing elemental particles in secret, and it took him a whole year for him to hear the sweet news of his labour. [Ding! Threshold of upper initiate magician level reached. User advancing, stats increased] He had finally reached the upper initiate level. His body and mind were feeling more in sync with each other, and he could feel the particles of energy around him more clearly than ever. Favian had hoped for his plan to come to fruition once he became an inner initiate level, however he found that he wasn''t able to learn any new spells from that level. Yet, what still gave him hope was that he could now scan what the fruits of his labour would be at the upper initiate level, and they did not disappoint. [User stats ¨C Constitution: 1.4, Strength: 1.4, Intelligence: 4.0, Agility: 1.4, Arcana:5. Mana pool 500] It seemed that after every breakthrough stages within a level, for instance inner and upper initiate magician, Favian''s Arcana stat would make the biggest breakthrough. It surged from 1.4 at his lower initiate stage, all the way to 5 once he reached his upper initiate stage. He had now received three new spells again, being a light, dark and shadow spell each. The light spell was called ''Cure minor wounds'' and it would give him the ability to heal himself of non-critical damage; it would be completely useless if he was suffering from organ failure. The dark spell was ''Rending claw'', this spell would let him project a claw of dark energy that would deal damage, and could travel as far as 50 meters. The shadow spell however had been the most interesting spell he gained, and was the reason why he could still see some light in this dark tunnel that was his captivity. ''Time stop'' was the spell he received, and would allow him to stop time for up to 3 seconds, up to twice a day. Yet, what came as even more of a surprise, was that this spell had levelled up naturally due to his captivity in a time-lock, and thus it had already reached level 10. This was mind-blowing, each level up increased the duration of time stop by 1 second, and the radius by 10 meters. ''System bring up information on spell Time stop.'' [Time Stop (level 10) ¨C 150 mana. Pauses time in a 100-meter radius around host for 13 seconds. Max level reached.] Favian had spent a whole year writing up half-truths about the book ''Darkness and Shadows''. He didn''t want to give away all of the secrets he now possessed, however he had to convince Neith that he was writing up the truth. Neith truly was what you would call bipolar. One moment she would be completely sane and have good conversations with Favian, and the next she would start cackling like a mad witch, and froth from her mouth like a rabid dog. Favian realised that he could use this to his advantage as it seemed that the sane Neith had warmed up to him. He had been able to prolong his imprisonment to a whole year by faking symptoms of burn-out, a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. This usually garnered sympathy from Neith whenever she wasn''t a mad dog, and let Favian level himself up very slowly. ''All my preparations are complete. I''ll go through with my plan now'' Favian was sure of himself to be able to complete his plan. He had spent a whole year meticulously carrying out his plan, and now was the time to finally release himself from this prison. The first thing Favian did was to quietly shred the words he had spent a year writing up on the book. After he had done this, he immediately cast net of shadows on the now sleeping Neith, who quickly became immobilized in a dark black substance. Before giving her any time to wake up he cast Time stop. Wisps of purple energy lit up through Favian''s eyes as he cast this spell, and the surroundings all became the colour of purple. He felt a tiny wave of exhaustion take over him as he had just used almost half of his whole mana pool in one go. ''13 seconds left'' he thought to himself. Without waiting, Favian gathered energy into both of his hands, and let the dark energy particles seep through his body onto the surface of his palms, now being shaped into claws. The claws continued to grow in size until they were the size of a head, and he unleashed them at the altar of the goddess. He continued casting more rending claws until he was completely out of mana, and then waited for them to finally impact his target once the effect of Time Stop wore off. ''CRACK'' ''BANG'' The altar was hit by four rending claws, and broke into smithereens. The noise woke up Neith who looked on in shock at the altar, rage quickly introduced on her face. However, it was too late for her to change anything. The time-lock had been broken, and Favian collapsed onto the floor after having used too much magic in a short period of time. Yet, as he collapsed, he also vanished from the prison. ¡­. Favian woke up on a bed, in an unknown room. The room was lit up by a window next to his bed. There was a cupboard, a desk and chair and some books on his desk. There was even some food left on the desk as well. ''Where am I?'' he asked himself, still groggy after waking up. Favian walked to the desk and started to munch on the fruits and bread that was left there, as his stomach was howling at him to eat something. ''It''s been a year since I had some food to eat.'' He thought to himself. The books on his desk were labelled ''Meditation techniques'' and ''Introduction to Dark Magic''. These two books were pretty hefty, and each weighed about a kilogram. There was a letter and amulet next to the books which read ''Use the communication device once you wake up''. That was all it said. Looking at the amulet next to the letter, Favian guessed that this was the communication device. Picking it up in his hand, it felt pretty warm, and was almost weightless. ''System, scan object.'' [Ding! Object can be used as a communication device. User must first input some arcane particles into it before it can be used. Would user like to imprint themselves onto device?] ''Yes.'' Favian suddenly felt that some of his essence had left himself and entered the device. He could now feel that the device was currently linked to one other person''s device. ''Bring up my stats'' he commanded to his system. [Constitution: 1.4, Strength: 1.4, Intelligence: 4.0, Agility: 1.4, Arcana: 4.5 (5), Mana pool 450 (500). Host imprinted on communication device, which costed 0.5 arcana. Rest will restore these temporary lost points.] ''Ah so that''s how arcana points work. So I''ll get them back after resting. I wonder what other uses it has except for imprinting onto a communications device'' [Ding! User successfully completed quest ''Escape time lock'' ¨C 2500 experience received. Total experience ¨C 3000] Favian became elated at the noise, this meant that he was out of danger currently and could finally rest. The imprisonment had taken a toll on his mind, however. He then wondered how long he had been out of the time lock ''How much time passed since I left the prison?'' [Ding! 336 hours 10 minutes and 17 seconds] it loyally replied. ''2 whole weeks? I must have missed so much by now'' his body felt renewed and not at all stiff like he would expect himself to have been after a 2 week long coma. ''It''s probably best that I get on with things here quickly at the academy. I don''t want to be left behind by my peers'' With that, he then activated the communication device. "Hello, can you hear me?" he spoke into it with a small voice. It seemed that his body hadn''t fully recovered after his coma. "Oh Favian, you''re finally awake" he could hear a female voice through the device which sounded like she was happy as could be. "Okay I''m going to send you the directions right now, why don''t you come meet me at my office. I know you have a lot of questions right now, and I promise to answer as much as I can." "How are you going to send the ma¡ª" just as he was asking, he could feel an incoming wave of information entering his brain. He now knew exactly where to go. 11 Rumours Favian quickly took a last bite out of the apple he had been eating before rushing through the oak door of his room. The hallway that he was greeted with was littered with pictures of portraits with some words written beneath them. One such picture was of a very old black man, wearing a suit and holding himself up with a cane. His eyes seemed to follow Favian wherever he moved, almost as if he was watching him intently. Written underneath this man''s portrait was, "Here rests Baron Samedi, loving and caring father of two. His achievements in magical research shall always be remembered, may he rest in peace." After looking at another ten of these pictures, Favian followed the directions imprinted in his mind. The interior of the part of the academy he walked through seemed pretty drab and boring, stone walls covering the whole pathway. There were no windows, and the only lighting inside was from candles placed on the sides of the walls and some chandeliers on the ceilings. This building seemed to have a common theme with medieval architecture, however the differences were that magic was woven into it. For example, the candles that were on the walls were actually levitating next to them when Favian took a closer look at them. Likewise, the chandeliers weren''t hung up against the ceiling, but were rather levitating very close to it. The flames would also never go out, unless a powerful magical influence was used to forcibly extinguish them. After Favian had walked for roughly ten minutes, he came across a courtyard with a fountain placed in the middle. Beautiful shrubs and plants of a spectacle of different colours were placed near the fountain, and a single path led towards it. The path was made up of a golden sand, ''Looks like something I would find at a beach in Santa Monica back home on Earth'' Favian thought to himself. Even though he had previously been in a rush to get to his destination, maybe because of the nostalgia brought back to him by the sandy path or the beautiful and magical vibe the area surrounding the fountain was giving off, Favian decided to take a detour and walked along the path. Sounds of birds chirping soothed his ears and went closer to the fountain, and the nearer her got to it, a soothing fragrance entered his nose. Favian felt completely at home here, and memories from his past life slowly started to reappear in his mind. He had tried so hard to shove down the memories of his past life once he emerged into this new world, as he had realised that surviving would require all of his energy. Yet here, he was finally able to reminisce about the times he went to the pier with his father, or when he would play at his mother''s boutique. The memories flooded his mind along with tears which wouldn''t stop cascading down from his eyes. He had felt so alone in this new world, and had nobody to rely on other than himself. This was something he knew, and would be the crux of his power in the future. He could never trust somebody else to do what he needed to get done, and he needed to work as hard as possible to be able to find a place in this life for himself. Favian had now been sat on the edge of the fountain, looking down at his own reflection as the tears slowly started to stop flowing. ''I will find a way, somehow to get back to Earth in the future, so that I can see my parents again.'' he thought to himself. Friends on the planet didn''t amount to much to him due to his anti-social nature, however his parents meant everything to him. He would keep amassing power until he could finally meet his parents again. What would come after that he did not know, but for now he had a clear goal in his mind. "I don''t care if it takes a hundred or a thousand years. I will see you again Mom and Dad." He promised himself, with resolution chiselled on his face. This was a vow he would never break. Just as he was about to get up, Favian heard a voice calling to him. "Are you alright there?" a deep male voice asked. Looking towards the direction of the sound, Favian could make out a boy who looked to be about his own age. The boy was freakishly handsome, and his ears were pointy at their ends. He looked like what Favian imagined an elf to be, however his skin was blackish-blue. His eyes were a deep purple, and had a glint in them. He looked handsome and manly at the same time, due to his unnaturally chiselled jawline and his hair was shaved to a buzzcut, with the sides faded to half an inch and the top of his head having a bit more hair on it. Favian had been too emotionally invested in himself as he cried that he didn''t notice that another person had been sat only 5 meters away from him at the other end of the fountain. Clearly this person must have noticed his full mental breakdown. Favian''s face flushed bright red, well if his brown skin allowed his face to portray a blush then it would have right in this moment, and he lowered his head down. ''He must have seen my ugly crying,'' was all that he could think about in the moment. *sigh* "Well I''m fine now. I just had to get something off my chest, that was all." Favian replied with a weak voice. The boy looked at Favian with a smile on his face and asked, "Need some company? I don''t think I''ve seen you around at the academy yet." He tried to rack his brain as to why this boy who had just been crying seemed familiar to him, yet he couldn''t tell what it was. "That''d be nice" Favian replied, motioning for the boy to seat himself next to him. As the boy sat down on the fountain, Favian extended his arm to give him a handshake. The boy looked very dumbstruck by Favian''s motion towards a handshake. ''What is he doing?'' is all he could think. Favian had forgotten that handshakes were only the common greeting on Earth and not on this planet. Quickly cursing in his mind, he removed his outstretched hand and simply asked the boy for his name after first giving his own. "I''m Dunkel, nice to meet you Favian. So, you''re the infamous Favian then are you? The rumours here at the academy have already put you to a legendary status" he replied with a glint in his eyes. He had heard so many rumours and yet this Favian looked a lot more unassuming than he expected, according to what was said about him. Now it was Favian''s turn to be utterly confused. ''What did he mean with I''m infamous? I don''t remember doing anything that warrants such a title''. Favian put himself into deep thought for a moment to rack his brain around what he could have done that caught enough attention to have rumours spread about himself, but he couldn''t come up with anything. "What do you mean about rumours? I don''t think I''ve done anything yet to warrant rumours about me. Wait how does everyone know me then?" Favian spoke with his expressions becoming more muddled the longer he thought about everything. Dunkel started to laugh hysterically, holding onto his belly as he loudly made a sound more akin to a howl than a laugh. His laugh was one of those laughs that were contagious, and Favian would also have started laughing because of it had he not been the cause of this laughing. "Wait you''re serious? You don''t know?" Dunkel suddenly let the laughter wash away and instead wore a face of surprise. "So, you don''t remember what happened after you were pushed off the cliff into the portal to the academy?" Favian nodded, not having a single clue what he was talking about. ''What on Earth happened.'' he thought to himself. "Dude you created an arcane rift as you were falling off the cliff. Your body took in so many of the energy particles in the atmosphere in a single moment that the veil separating our dimension, and another was almost torn. Professors Egast, Aria and Mildred all had to combine their powers to save you and stop you from falling into the rift. You literally looked like a meteor on fire as it happened." He said with a voice akin to a parent telling a story to a child. Dunkel was engrossed in the story and went on. "It''s rumoured that this type of event has only ever occurred once before by the forefather of all mages. There''s also a rumour going around that you''re the lovechild between Professors Egast and Aria, whom they kept secret until you were of age to study magic." He read out all of the rumours about Favian, which were seemingly endless. 12 Dunkel A dark mountain range covered as far as the eye could see, with various streams congealing together to form a river that ran through the Drow Woods. Moonlight shone down onto the river and glistened radiantly in the light. Fish could be seen swimming under the surface of the water, and the banks of the river were filled with flowers which would serve as precious resources for any who could find them. Had the various kingdoms on the continent found out about this place, they would not have hesitated to start a war that could span centuries just to claim this territory. This was how precious the resources found in these woods were. This forest was hidden within the Amity Mountain Range, and a spell had been cast to conceal this location from any intruders. The Drow people called this place home, their own sanctuary hidden away from the eyes of the other races on the continent of Ortu Solis. Drow, also known as dark elves or fallen elves were the distant cousins of the self-proclaimed ''High Elves'', who under their pretentious nature believed themselves to be the only true elf. Needless to say, drow and elves did not get along. Their hate for each other was fuelled by the ten thousand-year war, ''The War for unity'', where millions of each were killed and seas worth of blood was spilled. The two factions of elves that were embroiled in the ten-thousand-year war had changed so much in this time period, that they had become two distinct races. The Drow grew darker in complexion than their former brothers, mostly having a blackish or blueish hue to their skin, and their ears were not as long as those of the high elves. The War for Unity had been ignited by the brothers Ignis and Pyros, the dual kings of the ancient Elven nation, who both fell in love with the high priestess of the Elven goddess Kamilla. The high priestess of the goddess Kamilla had been ordered to relay a message to the kings, a message that triggered the longest war in the history of Ortu Solis. The message had been a simple one, "Only the blood of the 1 true Elven king can combine with a priestess of Kamilla." Despite having already reigned for a thousand years of prosperity together, Pyros and Ignis decided that their own love for each other was not enough for the spoils of war which they so desperately sought. Whilst embroiled in the war, Ignis realised that his faction would not be able to win, their manpower was too weak and their numbers too small. Thus, he made a pact with the God of the underworld, who vowed to give him the power over his domain, but in return for his soul upon death. The war was lost the moment Ignis made a pact with the underworld, as all of the other kingdoms banded together to fight off this ancient evil. In a last-ditch attempt to at least save his people, Ignis sacrificed his remaining essence to cast a high-level magic that would forever cloak the Drow Woods and stop any being that was not a member of the Drow from entering. "But that can''t be true Baba, why would Ignis have made a pact with the God of the underworld in the first place. Isn''t it said that he despised dark magic the most?" a small youth, with glinting purple eyes questioned the older lady whom he called Baba. The older, short lady holding herself up with a wooden cane looked at the child with an apologetic smile on her face, "One day you will understand yourself Dunkel. Love is what bonds us together as people, but it is ultimately also what tears us apart. Our ancestor had fallen so far in love that he ventured towards the means even he despised just for a chance to be with whom he loved." Dunkel looked at the woman with a face which betrayed that he did not understand. He was only a 4 years old child, so it would have been a miracle if he had been able to. Dunkel spent most of his life here in the Drow Woods, along with his family and friends. Life was easy here; there was always food on the table, the most risk one had was to drown in the river. He spent his early years in a perpetual state of joy; a sheltered life was what he led. His community didn''t let him know of a prophecy foretold a thousand years ago. "A child born under the light of the next blood will lead the Drow to an upheaval of history. Ignis will be resurrected, and the war of ten thousand years will once again be reignited." The said child born just happened to be Dunkel. ¡­. Back at the Dusk Academy Favian had been listening to Dunkel spewing out rumour after rumour for almost 10 minutes before he realised that he had left his room to meet up with the voice transmitted over his communication device earlier. Luckily for him, this was only a short walk from the fountain he was sat at right now. He quickly bid farewell to Dunkel and went on his way. ''What a funny guy, I hope I can see more of him here.'' Favian thought to himself. He''d been too shy to ask whether Dunkel wanted to hang out some time or to ask for him to get added to his communication device, and of course he had also been in a hurry. Favian always thought of himself as being socially inept, however the case was that he was just too shy to approach others to talk to. The moment somebody else tried to make friends with him, he''d be completely fine. Of course, this had been a rare occurrence back on Earth, partially due to his ''resting b*tch face'' or the fact that he looked like a stone-cold murderer when outfitted in his nurse garb. The scenery for this part of his walk consisted of less indoor corridors, and more buildings and greenery from outside. Favian quite enjoyed this, and was able to appreciate the unique architecture of the academy. He passed a pretty huge building which reached about 100 meters into the air and had the signpost of Library next to it. Finally, Favian arrived at his destination. A pretty average sized house. The name Aria Pencost hovered like a cloud above the roof of the building, all bold in capitals. Favian walked up towards the door. There was no doorknob, so he decided to just knock on the door. "Come in." shouted Aria. The door opened on its own accord, and what Favian''s eyes met were spacious room with an oak desk in the middle, piles of books and scrolls on the table. There were various vials placed neatly on a shelf to the side of the room. The room looked like a fusion between an office and a science lab, and had the inviting feel of a home to it. Aria was sat behind her desk, browsing the contents of a scroll, after which she took out a vial full of a red liquid and mixed it with a vial of a blue liquid. The moment the two liquids came in contact with each other, a loud sizzling sound could be heard, followed by an explosion. "F*ck what did I do wrong this time?" Aria shouted, as she rubbed her temples in a circular motion. A barrier was erected around the vials and stopped the explosive mixture from releasing into the room. "Anyways, Favian how are you feeling now?" she asked him, looking at him with a face full of worry. What Favian didn''t know was that Aria had been the most worried after he didn''t wake up this whole time. She felt responsible for not knowing why Favian caused for an arcane rift to occur. She believed that if she had given him a more thorough examination, she could have been able to prevent him from being put into such danger. What she obviously didn''t know yet was that Favian had been stuck in a time-lock, imprisoned by a crazed fanatic who looked like Evelynn. "I''m fine, my body just feels a bit sore, except for that everything''s as good as can be." he replied. ''At first I thought it was going to be hard to explain how I jumped from a lower initiate to an upper level initiate instantaneously, but it seems this whole arcane rift business has brought me some luck.'' Favian thought to himself. He still wasn''t sure whether to tell anybody about him being imprisoned in time, he couldn''t know exactly who to trust. For all Favian knew, there could be somebody spying on him from within the academy. Aria looked at him with suspicion, not believing completely that he was fine. He wasn''t acting like somebody who had just come out of a coma. "Well since you are now awake and fine, it''s time for you to get enrolled into the academy!" 13 Enrolmen "Okay. Well then, let''s get on with it." Aria gave Favian a warm smile as she handed him a blank parchment paper. It felt pretty heavy despite being so thin that he could see through it. Favian paused to really try and figure out what was so special about this piece of paper, but he couldn''t put his finger on it. Aria laughed at the boy in front of her who was concentrating so hard on finding out what this blank parchment was. ''Ahh he''s really so adorable. He reminds me of Sharie sometimes.'' The moment that thought jolted into her mind, a wave of sadness rushed into her, as she tried to seal all of the bad memories that were slowly drifting upwards. "Are you okay master?" Favian saw the quick change up displayed on her face. Despite not having felt the loss of a loved one himself, he had seen this look countless times whilst working and studying in the ER (Emergency Room) at medical school; His concern was almost a trained response due to his time there. "It''s nothing little one. Let me tell you about what your day will be like at the academy starting from tomorrow." Aria instead diverted the question. She was truly happy about the heartfelt concern Favian showed; despite having only known each other for a matter of weeks now (maybe even days when taking Favian''s coma into account), Aria felt a motherly bond had emerged for him. She wanted to nurture and protect Favian at all costs. A ceramic pot of tea was placed on the desk Aria was currently working on. She took out two teacups with the same floral pattern as the teapot, and poured a fragrant jasmine tea into them. She sipped onto her tea, not minding its extreme heat. After a moment she then passed a cup to Favian, who had to blow on the tea to cool it down, before he drank from it. The fragrance of the tea was markedly worse than its flavour. That was not to say the tea smelt bad, however the taste was just so amazing. "So, first thing is first Favian. Your week here at the academy will consist of 10 mandatory lectures, which each take up two hours of your time. These lectures are based on the subjects you wish to study, and usually there would be 1 subject you are required to study, however seeing that you have already reach the upper initiate realm, I doubt you need to learn about elementary magic principles." Aria kept sipping on her tea, its consumption soothing her and calming her previous emotions down. "On that piece of parchment paper, there''s all of the subjects you can study available. Be warned that some subjects are in such high demand that you would probably need to fight for a seat at a lecture. The choices are all yours however." The blank piece of parchment paper slowly started to reveal words. The paper was dark brown, and its length was that of an A2 sheet of paper. There were seemingly endless choices for Favian to pick for his 10 mandatory lectures. The classes were placed into different rows and columns as several of them would clash due to their lectures being held at the same time. For instance, Favian could either decide to learn Alchemy or Enchanting, but not both due to their conflict of schedule. ''Or wait, I could probably buy notes from another student and use those to learn.'' He thought to himself. Favian spent a full half hour reading through the different lectures he could go to, and finally decided on which to pick. He would decide to take lectures on ''Beast Taming 1'' and ''Beast Taming 2'', ''Intermediate magic particles 1 \u0026 2'', ''Enchanting for beginners'', ''Dark magic 1'', ''Light magic 1'', ''Illusions and their use'', ''Martial arts for beginners'' and finally ''Monster hunting 101''. It took him time to sort through which subjects wouldn''t clash with each other, and which he thought he would enjoy sitting through. If there had been anything he learnt in his past life, it was that it is insurmountably more difficult to learn something which you aren''t interested in. He had also received a prompt from his World of Exile game system stating that it could sort out the timetable for him, however he decided that he didn''t want to rely on the system too much in making his decisions. Thus, he spent half an hour making his decision. This made sure that he didn''t get the instant results his system was capable of giving, however it allowed him to feel like he was in control. "Master Aria, I think that I''m done with my choices." He spoke, handing the parchment to her with all of his allocated choices. "Hmm, that''s interesting. Why the focus on beast taming and monster hunting?" Aria asked, looking at Favian with a worried expression. "Taming powerful beasts is one of the most dangerous things you could attempt as a magician. You need to be able to be able to exert such a fine-tuned amount of power onto it, not too much to kill it, and not too little to allow it to escape. The fatality rate of young kids like you trying to tame monsters above their pay-grade is too high for me to feel comfortable with you choosing this." "I mean I don''t think it will hurt to just learn about it. It''s best that I have as much knowledge about beasts and environments as possible if I am going to venture outside of the academy in the future." He countered. His thought pattern was that he needed to learn as much he could about monsters, environments and magic phenomena in order to make sure that he was safe at any point in time he was outside the academy. Noticing the persistence in Favian''s voice, Aria felt at ease knowing that he had truly thought it through what he wished to study. "Okay then. That''s everything you''ll need to know. I''ll send off your choices for you right now." It was already starting to get a bit dark outside, and dinner time was approaching. "Oh shoot, I must''ve kept you here for too long Favian, you should hurry back to your room and get some food. Oh, and before I forget, everything here at the academy can be bought with contribution points. You earn these by finishing quests which are signposted at the Trade Area. We also give you a set number of contribution points based on your talent and level. Since you are of a purple arcane core, and have reached such a high level already, the director decided for you to get 300 contribution points." With that, Favian went back to his dorm room. ''Okay first thing is first, I need some food and a shower'' he thought to himself. He had yet to have a hot shower since he entered this new world. ''I really did take something as simple as a hot shower for granted, didn''t I?'' The shower he had was pretty much as good, if not better, than those he had back on Earth. ''Probably because I haven''t had one in ages.'' is what Favian thought. He ordered himself something which looked like a quiche or a frittata. Needless to say, it tasted amazing. Everything seemed better than on Earth. ''How weird.'' He savoured the richness of the food he ate, and after his last gulp of it he realised that he needed more. His body wasn''t satisfied yet. After ordering and eating another 3 portions of the quiche-like food, Favian finally felt satisfied. He had spent only 1 contribution point in total for all of the food. ''Not only will I not have to worry about food whilst I''m here at the academy, I''ll also be able to slowly build up my body with martial arts training. I think that I really struck on gold here.'' ''Okay lets get to business. System! Highlight any useful information from the books ''Introduction to Dark Magic'' and ''Meditation Techniques''.'' He ordered. [Ding! Introduction to Dark Magic has no information deemed as valuable. The information from the book ''Darkness and Shadows'' has more advanced information with less jargon. Meditation techniques has information which will allow host to actively meditate. Would host like for transfer of information?] ''Well that''s a shame, I hoped that there might be some info from the Dark Magic book but that''s fine. System transfer information.'' Favian didn''t want to be completely reliant on his game system, but he wasn''t an idiot. He would learn what he could at his lectures to improve his understanding of magic, however he would still use the system to gain instant knowledge whenever he deemed it necessary. There was no point in not using such a powerful tool. It''d be like a deciding to rummage through a phone-book for a number when the option of searching on the internet was there. 14 First Lecture Favian was currently sat on his bed, with his legs crossed in a meditative position. He wasn''t currently meditating, but rather he was deep in thought. ''So, meditation is essentially just an intake of world energy into the vessel of my own body. The amount of particles I can take in is limited by the capacity of the vessel, and the speed of pulling in these particles is limited by my knowledge, familiarity and attraction to the particles. My knowledge of dark, light and shadow particles are the greatest out of all of the particles, however I seem to be most talented in taking in dark energy particles.'' He thought to himself. ''System, create a standardized method for calculating affinity to all known arcane particles, and rank my affinities.'' Favian ordered. He wanted to closely track whether any changes occurred in the future. [Ding! Initializing computing function. Computing complete. Known arcana particles have been processed, 1 unknown anomaly found. Ranking particles from greatest to lowest affinity. 1. Unknown particle 2. Dark \u0026 Shadow particles (Both show host to have same affinity) 3. Light particle 4. Host affinity in all other particles is equally abysmal.] "Abysmal?? Since when did you get such an attitude?" He said as he fell back onto his pillow. Favian was feeling slightly underwhelmed by his natural affinities. He seemed to only have 4 particles he showed strong affinity towards, and of those 4 particles his strongest was unknown. ''Well I mean look at the bright side Favian, your strongest particle has to be one of the intermediate or advanced arcana particles then if its currently unknown.'' He thought to himself, hoping that these words would lift up his mood. They did. Realising that he had nothing better to do right now, Favian decided to meditate. It was much more useful than sleeping, as it would refresh the host as if they had slept, and would also aid in their improvement. However, it was well advised in the book ''Meditation Techniques'' to get some real sleep at least once a week, else lethargy and nausea would overcome oneself. Favian spent the next 8 hours meditating, after which he got himself ready for his first official day of magic academy. That feeling of unease you would get from the first day of school was also one of the reasons he decided to meditate throughout the night. It was always scary having to meet new people and make friends in a setting you weren''t used to, and despite Favian having already lived for over 20 years previously, this emotion was something that was difficult to part from. After drinking some tea, Favian checked himself out in the mirror next to his desk. He hadn''t noticed at all that his hair was turning more purple. It was now almost half black and half purple, whereas before it had been mostly black with hues of purple spread across. Not giving it too much thought, Favian sped out of his room towards the location of his first lecture, The Barracks. The Barracks was a large stretch of land in the academy which housed everything to do with beasts and combat. A medium sized colosseum was also built in the Barracks, and this was where disputes between students were held. The academy firmly believed in letting students take care of their personal issues by themselves, as this would create independence for them. It would be pointless to create a magician who relied completely on society and other people when a lot of the time studies would take years of isolation. This was the Dusk Academy''s philosophy, which contrasted with the Dawn Academy''s in almost every possible way. Favian arrived at his destination. A training hall within The Barracks which housed the lectures for martial arts. The building looked very bland from the outside, with there being only a few windows around it, and a dull marble being used for its construction, which gave a real rustic atmosphere to the place. Once he entered through the front door, a waft of blood and sweat invaded his nostrils. The sounds of ''KA'' and ''CHA'' resonated through the large room. There were heavily muscled males and females littered around massive main hall of the building. Most of the people were either working out on mats or practicing fighting techniques and the energy in this room was pretty intoxicating, with everyone present trying to improve themselves. Some people were even practicing a combination of physical and magical exercise. What caught Favian''s eye was an Elven looking girl, whose white curly hair looked like the waves of an ocean. This girl was currently practicing some weird style of combat art with a sword whilst also using wind magic to levitate a small boulder in the air. This girl was exhibiting such strength and had a prestigious air around her, but all that Favian could think about was one thing, "Wow your lips are so gorgeous." ¡­. Silence. Everyone stopped in their tracks and looked at Favian. The silence was so deafening, that dropping a single grain of sand would have sounded like a volcanic eruption. ''Oh f*ck, what have I done. I said that out loud didn''t I.'' Favian knew of no way to navigate out of this awkward scene. His blood started to sprint towards his face, and a fight-or-flight reaction was initiated by him almost immediately. Favian ran towards the room within which his first lesson would happen in about 10 minutes, and decided to sit himself down straight in the middle of the classroom. Favian had been in tunnel-vision as he ran away from his blunder, so he didn''t notice that the professor was already sat behind a desk in front of the classroom. The professor was a rather imposing man, with his muscles bulging to the extremes. He looked like a bodybuilder, yet almost as if he had altered his whole musculature to look as perfect as possible. If he had not looked human, any person would guess that he was a goliath or a giant just based on how huge he was. "You there! Come spar with me!" the professor growled. His rough voice called out the challenge to Favian who was still in a daze. ''What on Earth is going on now?'' Favian was having the worst first day of school possible. As he looked at the professor with a clearer mind, he realised that in between the desk up front, there was a 10-metre radius of space that was just open ground filled with mats. "Come! Don''t be shy, I won''t hurt you boy." This time he didn''t speak as aggressively, instead asking in a more neutral manner. The professor saw Favian''s dazed expression, yet still wanted to get his muscles moving. All of the paperwork he had to do since the start of the academy year was making his mind go crazy. Favian looked at the formidable professor, before shaking his head in defeat. He would not, or rather could not put up any sort of fight with this man. ''If all of the students that took Martial Arts as a subject are like this teacher, then I''m going to have a loooooong stressful time here.'' His emotions were completely turbulent on this day, and Favian became even more dejected. "I''m sorry professor, sorry I don''t know your name, but I have no martial arts experience at all. I was hoping to learn how to defend myself in case I run out of magic, and because my body is really weak right now." The professor looked on at Favian and had a complete change of heart. Initially he made things hard for Favian as he had been stressed out by his workload, and because of it he was generally more irritable. In this state of mind, he saw a scrawny young boy coming into his class, and thought it to be a joke. He only wanted to test what type of individual this boy was, and it seemed to be the right kind of person to be taught. Somebody who wanted to improve themselves was worthy of any class taught by himself. "Well met boy, I am professor St-Pierre, and I''ll be taking you through beginners martial arts. I''ll be honest, your foundations in martial arts are very weak even considering this to be a basic level class. Usually the people that join have already had some form of experience. But don''t worry, if you are dedicated and work hard, I''ll make sure that your dream becomes a reality." Professor St-Pierre exclaimed, placing his hand above his chest in the military salute common on the continent of Ortu Solis. "Now we have a few minutes before class starts, so drop down and give me 100 push-ups boy!" he exclaimed. His eyes drilled into Favian, making sure that he knew ''No'' to not be an acceptable answer. ''...¡­'' Favian''s mind went blank. ''Did I just enter the military?'' ¡­. 15 Another confrontation "98" "99" "100" *Pant* *Pant* Favian was collapsed onto the floor, trying hard to get his breath back. He''d been able to do all of the push-ups due to his increased strength and constitution values, which were now at 1.4, however, this only meant he was 40% stronger than an average human. Compared to a professional Muay Thai fighter, Favian still had a long way to go in terms of physical talent. "Boy, you have your work cut out for you. Know what, come by the training facility here every morning at 4am and I''ll teach you myself. Your enthusiasm has reinvigorated this old man here." St-Pierre decided this on a whim, however more exercise would never hurt an aged man like himself. ''Old man¡­ Wait? Huh? But you look like you are 30 years old at the peak of human existence with your chiselled body! Oh this world is giving me so many surprises, I''m going to die of a heart attack at some point.'' Just as Favian had finished drying the sweat off his forehead with a towel handed to him by the professor, other students started to flood the classroom. Favian went back to his seat in the middle of the room, and placed the tome he would be writing down notes on. As a measure to make sure he didn''t miss anything, Favian decided that he would let the game system also make its own abridged version of the lecture, which would be compared with his own notes. After another five minutes all of the students arrived. ''Oh, this reminds me so much of medical school, how I miss those days¡­ wait, nah, those days were gruelling and wrought with pain because of the workload.'' "Oh Favian, didn''t realise you picked martial arts as well." Called out a familiar voice energetically. Looking to his left, Favian could make out the insanely handsome face of Dunkel, who decided to take a seat next to him. "Dunkel you chose martial arts?" Favian looked at the drow next to him with a happy smile plastered on his face. ''So, I have at least one friend now.'' was the thought going through his mind. Favian was able to examine all of the notes Dunkel had written for the previous 2 lectures that he missed due to his coma, however it seemed like the first lectures of each course didn''t really matter too much. Favian felt that he''d be fine even without knowledge of them. What he had learnt in the martial arts training were simple body refining techniques, which would help strengthen the body. If meditation techniques could be said to improve mainly arcana and intelligence, and a by-product of breakthrough to higher levels would give a net gain of strength, constitution and dexterity, then body refining techniques are the exact opposite. Breaking through a bottleneck of one''s own physical parameters would aid intelligence and arcana. Dunkel had helped Favian out a lot by explaining this, and also by letting Favian know that certain races had specific training techniques which only they could use. For instance, Dunkel himself used a technique which only drow could use. The lecture ended with a bit of physical exertion, with the whole class being made to run through some martial arts techniques which looked strikingly similar to Krav Maga, one of the best self-defence techniques back on Earth. "Yo Favian, fancy grabbing a bite to eat? I hear that at noon everyday they sell some of the best puff pastry on campus at this caf¨¦ in the Barracks." Dunkel was salivating already just at the thought of the delicacy which he would be biting into soon. He had been a glutton ever since he was young, and his grandma always teased him that he was so handsome because of it, and would feed him even more. Favian thought about it for only a second before agreeing. He could definitely blow off some steam on a pile of food because of how rough his day had already been. It took only 10 minutes for the pair to close in on the ''Elegantia Caf¨¦''. It was a small building with two floors, and had seating both inside and outside. There were pots and vases of flowers all around the place, and there were even many paintings hanged inside. After entering through the front door, the whiff of baked goods intensified, and the smell of sugar caused for even Favian to start salivating. "I don''t even know where to start, what should I order from here Dunkel?" he asked. Too many options were present, and they all sounded equally amazing. His body was starving after the martial arts lecture, and if it were his choice, he would try to sample everything on the menu. Dunkel looked at the menu which was written in chalk behind the counter before making a quick decision. "Dude, I think what you need after class is a banana milkshake, a chocolate brownie and summer fruits tart." Favian walked up to the counter, where a middle-aged woman was currently stood behind, sorting out some of the freshly baked goods. She was currently dipping what seemed to be donuts in chocolate. Waiting for her to finish sorting these donuts out, which only took half a minute, Favian proceeded to make an order which left both Dunkel and the shop-owner startled. "Ma''am, I''d like to order 3 banana milkshakes, 2 chocolate brownies, 3 summer fruit tarts and 6 of those chocolate donuts you just finished cooking." An embarrassed smile came onto Favian''s face as he made this order, because his stomach decided to make a huge GROWL after he had finished speaking, almost agreeing with the choice its owner made. It took the lady a moment to process the order, as nobody had ever come to the shop to eat this much before. "Sure thing, that''ll be 3 contribution points." Favian transferred the points via his communication amulet ¨C which also worked like a bank card ¨C before seating himself with Dunkel at a table outside the caf¨¦. The sun shone down on the area surrounding the caf¨¦, with a slight breeze cooling them down from the summer heat. Favian and Dunkel were busy enjoying their food whilst also conversing at the same time. They talked about their childhood, how they learned magic and many other random things. A true friendship seemed to be budding; Dunkel was a talkative energetic boy whilst Favian was a more chilled and laid-back person. This meant that they bounced off each other nicely during their conversations, with Dunkel able to get Favian talking more than he usually would. "Licht, isn''t that the boy who said vulgar things to you earlier?" a loud shout boomed, as a group of people walked up towards Favian and Dunkel. All the people nearby looked at the group of four walk up towards the boys sat eating pastries, knowing that a fight was going to break out. Fights were commonplace in an academy filled with narcissistic individuals, so the scene didn''t faze the crowd, and everyone just went on with their day. The pretty elven girl that Favian had complimented so tactlessly was amongst the group, followed by two more elven girls and an elven boy. Each one of these elves looked prettier than most models on Earth, Favian thought to himself. ''Just great I''m about to get gang stomped by a group of the most beautiful people in existence, just my luck.'' Favian''s mood turned sour at the rude interruption his conversation with Dunkel received. ''System scan the group of elves approaching me.'' [Ding! Unable to scan 1 target as their power level is above host''s. Target 1 ¨C 2.3 strength, 1.2 agility, 2.0 constitution, 2.1 intelligence Target 2 ¨C 1.4 strength, 2.2 agility, 2.1 constitution, 1.8 intelligence Target 3 ¨C 3.0 strength, 1.0 agility, 1.5 constitution, 2.0 intelligence] ''Wow these people are just cannon fodder aren''t they. Just so weak. I don''t want to have to fight them, but if Dunkel helps me we could probably take them on. Well let me see if I can reason with them first.'' Favian looked at the elven boy who just spoke, who was staring back with a smug expression, almost as if taunting Favian about the incident earlier. "Licht, is that your name?" he asked the girl who he previously complimented, deciding to completely ignore the elven boy. The elven girl looked at Favian shyly, her long curly hair glistened in the sunlight. Her eyes were a brown colour originally, but the sunlight made it melt into a more caramel colour. ''Why is my heart beating so fast right now.'' Licht wondered. She had been used to compliments her whole life, however these compliments had always been focused on her power in battle and magic, not on her appearance. "Ye- Yes my name is Licht. Sorry about my friends we''ll be on our way." She quickly decided to try and leave as soon as possible, as she could feel blood creeping towards her face slowly. She didn''t want to reveal such a vulnerable face to somebody else. Licht tried to move her group away, but the elven boy relented, clearly having been annoyed by Favian''s dismissal of him. 16 Another confrontation 2 "Filthy human, you dare to ignore me? Not only are u vulgar and without tact having abused our princess Licht, but you even associate yourself with those disgusting drow vermin?" the elven male spat out venomously, his forehead showing a bulging vein about to burst open. Dunkel jumped up at the insult to his race, moving closer to the elf boy until he was stood so close to him that their faces almost touched. Dunkel''s eyes felt like a black hole, sucking the elf into an abyss of chaos and rage. "How dare you!" he replied to the slander. The relationship between elf and drow was clearly stained into a blood feud that would never be solved, evident by the sheer hostility Dunkel exhibited against the elves. With Dunkel''s face just centimetres away from his own, the boy cowered away, shuffling backwards towards his group. "If you two aren''t afraid then come to the colosseum so that we can exchange some notes. The loser will have to lick the feet of the victor." He mustered up the courage to speak only once he was back in the vicinity of the other elves, feeling protected by their larger number. "What do you think? I''m getting really pissed off by that pretentious prick already, so there''d be no harm in us teaching a lesson Favian." Dunkel exclaimed, making sure his voice was loud enough for the opposing group to hear. Hearing the name Favian, the elf boy''s face turned as white as diamond. He had heard rumours that Favian had killed a mountain lion by himself when he was only 3 years old. Most people didn''t actually know what Favian looked like, therefore he became a complete ghost, a myth. "Fa- Favian? I didn''t realise that you''re THE Favian. I''d like to apologize for my rude behaviour just now. How about we cancel the pointless competition, we''ve all got better things to do than fight each other." The boy now was frightened. He no longer felt safe within the protection of his group, and needed to weasel his way out of this situation however he could, regardless of whether he would lose face. Favian thought about what to do for a moment, and even though a part of him was urging him to just let bygones be bygones, he for some reason felt compelled to reject the offer. ''Not only has this a**hole been a d*ck to Dunkel and me, but I bet that he''d try to escalate everything if he didn''t know about my strength.'' "Huh? So, you''re scared about me and a lowly drow now are you? I didn''t realise the elven kingdom bred such weaklings who are all bark and no bite. I mean sure we can cancel our little spar, but I can bet my life on it that Dunkel here will find a way to make sure EVERYONE at the academy will hear about your cowardliness." Favian said as he looked straight at the gorgeous Licht, not once breaking eye contact with her throughout the whole exchange. "Fine. I will arrange for our friendly match to be held in 5 days." Immediately after saying this, the elf boy left with his group, making a hasty retreat. ''Oh sh*t what have I done; I was staring at her for so long. She probably think''s I''m a creep. Why did I even act all tough right there, that''s not like me at all.'' Favian was baffled by the events that happened today. Everything escalated so quickly, and was completely out of his control for the majority of the time. Dunkel had now calmed down enough to joke again with Favian. He made fun of how much bravado Favian displayed earlier, before they both bid each other farewell. On their way back to the dormitories, Favian asked, "So who is this Licht? She doesn''t seem like a first year. I can''t exactly explain it but she''s a lot stronger than the rest of our peers." He''d been curious this whole time why somebody whose strength was greater than his own would hang out with the cannon fodder from earlier. "Oh Licht? She''s the youngest princess of the Elven Kingdom. To answer your question, yes, she is only a first year like us, however she, the same as I, has been trained in magic since birth. Us elves and drow are just fine-tuned to magic in a way most other races aren''t. And I''m not sure if you noticed earlier, but there''s some serious bad blood between us." Dunkel went on to explain the 10-thousand-year war and how the feud between drow and elves began. At certain parts of the story he couldn''t help but get teary eyed, the amount of blood that had been shed between the two races had been pointless in his opinion. The two bid each other farewell as they reached the dormitories. It seemed that Favian and Dunkel would have lessons together in martial arts, monster hunting and dark magic. ''Guess I''ve really made a friend haven''t I. Well I have a fight coming up soon, so it''s probably smart if I start training for it.'' The living quarters within the academy were completely randomly allocated. The only known quantity was that professors lived in their own space separate from the student living quarters. A kitchen could be found within each section of dormitories, which usually housed about 100 students. This meant that the preparation of food was extremely quick, and food could even be ordered 24/7. It was highly known that most magicians would work for days or even weeks without sleep, therefore food was available at all times. There''d be nothing sadder than a mage making a breakthrough, however dying immediately after as they couldn''t get food quickly enough. Once Favian got back to his room, he immediately went into what he himself dubbed ''crazy study mode''. He would usually enter a frenzy like state before midterms and exams back on Earth, to make sure he did as well as possible. Right now, instead, he went to meditate. An idea entered Favian''s mind, ''I''ve not yet tried this out, but what would happen if I actively meditate and also let my system passively meditate as well.'' He had only actively meditated once before, and he felt that it hadn''t been extremely useful in improving himself. It helped to keep him invigorated, but it seemed like the energy particles he was absorbing were just pulled into a void inside himself which he couldn''t interact with. Immediately after he had gotten the idea, he went over to his bed and rested in a comfortable position. The usual meditative position wasn''t feeling comfortable for him, so Favian decided to just lay with his back against his bed frame. ''System initiate activate automatic arcana assembly.'' With this command, swirls of energy particles started to enter Favian''s body. The dark energy particles entered him the most efficiently, and light particles were the next efficiently processed. ''Weird, I thought that shadow particles and dark energy particles would be taken in at the same rate. System, what is the reason for no shadow energy particles being absorbed into me body?'' he questioned, baffled at the current outcome. Favian had never questioned the lack of shadow particles being absorbed by himself whilst he was held captive as he was preoccupied with just increasing his strength quickly. ''Maybe more advanced particles aren''t so easy to absorb.'' he thought to himself. [Ding! System unable to grasp at particles of intermediate and advanced levels. Host will have to manually target and absorb them.] This answer made him feel a bit let down, however, it was well within expectation. His system wasn''t perfect after all. ''Maybe the system will be able to absorb them once I upgrade it. I still need another 7000 experience before I can upgrade the system though.'' Slowly Favian tried his best to locate the shadow particles in the vicinity. He was able to grasp them, but it was difficult to control them once they entered his body. They seemed to be getting pulled in by some unknown force. ''Strange, why is everything I''m absorbing not nourishing my body. The feeling of growth I get from the system''s absorption isn''t here.'' Favian then decided to turn off the absorption by the system, to test whether this was just a by-product of him trying to absorb too many particles. To his disappointment however, this wasn''t the case. He still didn''t feel any growth coming out of his manual meditation. ''System, bring up all information related to absorption techniques.'' he commanded. [Ding! ''Darkness and Shadows'' has an excerpt which was hidden from host until he reached upper initiate level. Passage reads out as follows: "To train in the shadows means to live in the shadows. Practitioners of shadow magic will be forced to invest tremendous amounts of energy into breaking through to a Level 1 Mage. A second arcane core will be formed in the user''s body, with breaking through to Level 1 signifying the successful creation of a second core. After reaching the realm of an upper initiate, all meditation and absorption of world energy will not improve a practitioner, and will instead be used to improve said arcane core."] The system read out. ''Well f*ck.'' Favian thought to himself. ''Bright side is that my system still absorbs the world energy as usual, so my body will continue to grow.'' 17 Colosseum In a tall spire which overlooked a vast forest sat two figures. The forest was shrouded in darkness, and the sounds of beasts fighting could be heard. The spire stood at almost 500 meters in height, and the obsidian material that was used to create it blended in perfectly with the night. The two figures were both stood at a terrace, a heated conversation was underway. "How dare those non-believers steal one of our sacred treasures? We must raze their lands to the ground for this blasphemy!" spoke a short man, anger apparent in his voice. "Raziel, you must have patience, for Eris has not yet spoken." A woman bathed in moonlight calmly said. Her voice was angelic and soothing, and when she spoke it sounded more like a lullaby than words. The man however still relented, "High priestess, we must act with haste, lest the treasure is lost." He was now pleading more than ever, hoping to change her mind. The high priestess looked towards the sky, her presence divine, before simply disappearing into thin air. A blood gurgling scream could be heard immediately after she disappeared, followed by a loud snap. The priestess returned to the tower only seconds later, with a decapitated head in hand. "A spy in our ranks." she exclaimed. Her angelic appearance morphed into that of a demon, blood covering her face and body. She opened her mouth wide and gorged on the fresh meat she had just claimed. ¡­ The continent of Ortu Solis was divided into numerous different factions and territories. To the east of the continent, taking up the largest patch of land was that of the common folk. The common folk were made up of the humans, who held the highest population, the dwarves and various other races. This part of the continent was a melting pot of these different cultures. Here, most of the magical academies resided, and almost 50% of the continent¡äs population was held. Adventurers guilds, mercenary guilds and assassins'' guilds were all also commonplace in the various kingdoms in the east, and each held their own might in the continent. To the west was where the elves made their territory, in the Great Forest. The elves were a secluded bunch, who rarely made themselves known throughout the continent, they would only send their young to the various schools before having them brought back. To the north lived the giants, in the cold tundra, and here the great martial schools had been built. If an individual wanted to learn to be a fighter, they would come here. The giants were a simple species, who warred with each other continuously, peace never being an option. Yet, their overly simple nature was balanced with their incredible power. They weren¡ät gifted with magic, but instead had an innate bloodline that granted them immeasurable constitution and strength. What lay in the south of the continent was unknown to most. They believed it to be a vast expanse of desert impassable due to the great number of monsters living there. Rumours had it that two gods once descended to the continent, and fought each other in the south. The area was said to have been barren ever since, and a regular person would not last even one second in the harsh environment there. This was not the case however, and most high-ranking individuals on the continent knew that something even more evil lay to the south; a barrier had been built millennia ago to protect Ortu Solis from whatever was hidden there. ¡­ Favian had spent the rest of the night attempting to gather world energy into his own body to no avail. It seemed that what was written in the book was true, he would not be able to see the fruits of his labour any time soon. ''This better be worth it and make me strong.'' The next few days Favian spent going to lectures, hanging out with Dunkel, practicing at home, and getting 1 on 1 lessons with Professor St-Pierre. His intelligence and arcana stats were increasing ever so slowly, and he hadn''t even reached the 10% threshold to Level 1 magician yet. His system estimated that it would take him 9 months at this rate before he would level up, and every level up after that would be increasingly more difficult and take more time. Favian''s strength, constitution and dexterity however were improving at a faster pace due to his increase physical exercise and massive consumption of foods. The lectures on beast taming and monster hunting had been very insightful, and Favian was able to grasp the basics already. It seemed that his intelligence value of 4.0 was higher than the average student here, who''s values ranged from 1.8 to 3.5. So far there had only been a small number of individuals from his cohort whom Favian couldn''t scan, and this included Dunkel. It seemed that his friend had some mysterious powers. Dark magic 1 and Light magic 1 had been quite uninspiring, he hadn''t learned much from it which wasn''t already in the book ''Darkness and Shadows''. Today was Friday, and it was finally the day for his first competition with another student. The first thing Favian did was go to his lecture on intermediate magic particles. This had been the most insightful lecture yet, as it helped him gain knowledge that the various types of layering of the 6 basic particles would create intermediate magic particles, which were usually stronger than the basic particles. For instance, dark magic particles could be layered to form death magic particles, which were the main source of energy necromancers or warlocks used. Light magic particles could be layered to form life magic particles, which Paladins and Clerics used. There were even some obscure particles which were formed by layering two different basic elements together. ''So according to the book I stole from that caravan, shadow magic is just the layering of light and dark magic particles together in a very specific sequence, or at least that''s the theory I''m going to have to accept. Using the wrong sequence of layering will just cause for failure it seems.'' Favian had figured out what the essence of shadow magic was, however, the specific layering sequences of these obscure particles were the most important part in discovering them. Shadow magic was not well known as the exact sequencing, almost like a strand of DNA, needed to be synthesized perfectly, else it would just end in failure, or could even backlash against the host and kill them. ''That''s one of the reasons why new particles are rarely discovered.'' he thought to himself in shock. He had truly been lucky to make discover such a valuable treasure. Without the game system, it was also almost impossible to discover the sequence of shadow magic particles in the book ''Darkness and Shadows'' as the information was hidden in a binary code, which was easy to unzip by a computer like system that he had, but difficult for a mortal. Thus, Favian didn''t worry about shadow magic being discovered anytime soon. ''Anyways, if they do discover it, I doubt that it will be released to the public. Mages are greedy.'' Favian got a quick bite to eat, before he met up with Dunkel outside of the colosseum. What stood before them was a circular building, built with a white limestone. Once inside, Favian noticed that the seating area could probably house over 5 thousand people. The circumference of the building wasn''t too large, but the height of it extended to allow 50 rows of seats to extend vertically. Each row could seat roughly 100 people. Favian''s jaw dropped as he entered with Dunkel, who was likewise baffled. The stadium was currently filled to almost half capacity, with the crowd cheering once the two arrived inside the stadium. "Hey what''s going on? Why are there so many people?" Favian asked, sweat dripping off his palms. Dunkel looked similarly confused, "I don''t know what on Earth is going on here." After deliberating for a second, he continued, "Those damn elves, I bet they are trying to make a show out of this." Dunkel snarled as he got those words out of his mouth, his fury rising the moment he thought about the rude elves. It seemed that Dunkel was correct, the elf boy, Garu, had been scared to death to fight against the infamous Favian in a fair, 1 on 1 combat situation, so he resulted towards changing up tactics, and making it a 2 on 2 combat instead with a senior of his own. "What the hell, is it even allowed for a proper rank 1 magician to fight against us when we aren''t rank 1?" Favian questioned the overseer of the colosseum. The overseer was a battle-hardened veteran, with a bald head and scars littered over his body. He wore minimal clothing, only covering his legs with some brown trousers. His muscles bulged as he spoke with Favian, explaining that he would make sure that the rank 1 magician would not use any magic of that level. ''Oh, right that sounds totally safe, for all I know these guys have bought off the referee and I''m about to get my ass whooped today.'' Favian thought, with his pessimistic side taking hold of him. 18 Colosseum 2 Favian and Dunkel were brought to a room inside the colosseum which was blocked off from the crowd. This room served as the place where fighters would prepare for their ensuing battle. Dunkel was currently sat meditating to one side of the room, whilst Favian was just stood in the centre of the room. To an outsider it would look like Favian was just staring into thin air, however, he was currently conversing with his game system. After finally deliberating what to name the system, Favian gave it the name ''Elon'', named after one of Earth''s most influential people whilst Favian was still alive. ''Elon bring up my stats'' Favian commanded his newly named system. (Ding! Constitution: 1.6, Strength: 1.8, Intelligence: 4.0, Agility: 1.5, Arcana:5. Mana pool 500. Total Experience 3000) Elon replied faithfully. ''So, my strength has made a pretty big leap because of all the 4 am training I''ve been doing with Professor St-Pierre.'' Favian thought. The constant exercise was grueling, but it clearly was making him become stronger. On the other hand, his intelligence and arcana hadn''t made a single leap. Favian had decided that it was more important for him to complete his second arcane core, so he let all the energy his system would instead have passively poured into his already present magic core pour into the infantile second core. This meant that he was progressing through his second core creation at almost more than double the speed. Dunkel quickly got up from as a gong was sounded in the room. His eyes were calmer than their usual energetic self, and he seemed a lot more composed. The atmosphere around him was terrifying, like a cold-blooded killer waiting to pounce on his prey. "Guess it''s time for us to go." Dunkel said, his voice calm like a lion before pouncing on its prey. Favian nodded in response and left through the door to the main area of the colosseum. The main stage was a simple lawn of grass, with only the 4 students about to faceoff standing on it. The overseer sat in a highchair above the lawn, able to see everything clearly. "The aggressors of this match are from the party led by Garu. Therefore, Favian Umbra and Dunkel Jaeger, you may decide the setting this battle will be held in. You have the choices of desert, tundra, jungle, and plains." the overseer''s voice boomed loudly for all in the colosseum to hear. The decision had already been agreed between Favian and Dunkel back in the waiting area, and they had even planned out a strategy. Of course, this strategy was limited as they had no idea what type of magic they would be up against. "We choose the jungle." Favian shouted, making sure that his opponents, who were stood about 100 meters away, could hear him clearly. The overseer nodded, stretched out his arms, and released a large amount of energy towards the battlefield. Green and brown wisps of energy fell onto it like torrential rain, and molded the area into a thick jungle, with tall trees stood crawling out of the soil until they covered the ground from light. Only patches of the area were made visible by the sun overhead, and the dense foliage made for a battlefield more suited to guerrilla warfare. From the outside, huge screens displayed the faces of the four competitors and their surroundings. Favian and Dunkel slowly made their way through the foliage, making sure that they moved as silently as possible. Dusk found a pretty ingenious way to use his skill bend light. It currently allowed him to refract the light around himself and Dunkel, and all other objects within a 5-meter radius of himself, which acted as a sort of camouflage. This, of course, wasn''t perfect, as the closer an enemy got to Favian, the easier it would be to discern this technique. However, from further distances away, and in a densely packed jungle such as this, it was impossible to make out their approach. The pair made their way towards a stream near the centre of the jungle. The flowing water could be heard from a distance away. Sat by the edge of the stream about 20 metres away were the two elves, highly alert, and constantly checking their surroundings for any changes. Favian nodded at Dunkel, signalling for the start of their plan. Dunkel suddenly started to whisper a silent incantation, which was followed by wisps of black energy surrounding him. A large longbow was formed in his hands, made out of what seemed like raven feathers. He then proceeded to notch an arrow made out of pure dark energy and fired directly at the two elves. The arrow grew the further it flew, before it crashed into the elves, leaving behind a huge crater where the stream had once been. Water was sprayed in the air, and soil was flung high. ¡­ "WOAH." "COOL." "AMAZING." The crowd watching the fight were pleasantly surprised by the display of power. They were getting hyped up by the match. Some people were on the edges of their seats, anticipating the next moves. On the screen focused on the elf who was already a level 1 mage, the crowd noticed that Favian was lying on the floor, in a puddle of blood. "What just happened?" asked a youthful girl. Everything had happened so quickly that nobody was able to notice how the battle was already nearing its end. ¡­ Back at the scene of the battle, in the thick of the jungle. Moments after Dunkel had fired off his arrow, the whole fight was flung into chaos. Favian and Dunkel thought that they had been the ambushers, their concealment perfect. What they only realised now was that even without using level 1 magic, a level 1 mage had much higher base stats than they did. The unnamed elf was able to discern the two before their sneak attack, rendering it completely useless. The elf had already pre-emptively cast a teleportation spell the moment he noticed Favian and Dunkel within the foliage, and once the arrow left Dunkel''s quiver, he repositioned himself and Garu behind the attacking pair. With a shout, Garu rushed forward towards Dunkel slashing at him with his hands which were transformed into flaming swords. Dunkel was forced to duck and weave away from the swords, and maneuvered himself backward with a backflip. His short-range combat ability wasn''t the best, else he would have been able to wipe the floor with Garu by now. Somebody who was weaker could always make up for that in combat style, as shown with Garu being able to put the pressure onto Dunkel in close combat, despite them being a lower stage initiate and an upper stage initiate. Favian was being bombarded with bolts of lightning from the moment the enemies teleported behind him. The system had given him a heads up, however, it wasn''t enough time to give him an advantage. Yet he was able to cast his protective barrier around himself, negating some of the damage caused by the barrage of lightning. His hair was now completely frizzed and pointing upwards as if he were a mad scientist. ''Damnit, our whole plan has gone wrong.'' Favian thought to himself as he ran in zigzags trying to closer to the elf. He had once heard on Earth that by running in such a way, without a set pattern of direction, you''d be more likely to escape from gunfire. The elf was still throwing lightning bolt upon lightning bolt, not being tired out at all by the constant usage of this low-level magic. He saw Favian run-up towards him, however, he didn''t try and increase the distance between the two. His pride as a Level 1 Magician made sure that he met Favian head-on. As Favian got within 5 metres of his opponent, he chanted the incantation for Time stop as quickly as he possibly could. As he was chanting, the world slowly started to slow down. He could see the lightning bolts arcing from the palms of the elf in front of him, the bolts a dark blue hue now that Favian could see them more clearly. As time was slowing down, Favian instead opted to dodge the bolts, ducking whenever a bolt got too close or jumping when it was about to hit his feet. After finally finishing his chant, time stopped completely. The surroundings turned purple, and wisps of purple energy were frozen in time for only him to see. Favian wasted no time, and sprinted towards the elf, simultaneously casting net of shadows in one hand and rending claw in another. Both of these spells were long-range; however, he knew that his opponent still held the advantage in long-range as he was casting spells almost unlimitedly. Favian only had a much smaller number of spells he could cast in succession, due to his 500-mana pool. Dark energy undulations sprung forth from his both of his hands as a tar-like net flew towards the elf, covering him completely. Favian had figured out that he could cast a spell and let it detonate only after his time stop ended, thus he cast a barrage of claws of dark energy at his opponent, aiming for his arms. ''Can''t cast magic if your arms are broken can you now?'' he thought to himself, as he noticed the elf in front of him was using his arms as a conduit for the electricity. 19 Shockwave Everything took such a quick turn, Favian wasn''t even able to process what had happened. He had cast 6 rending claws in succession against the elf before time started to work as normal. The rending claws impacted onto the elf and layered upon each other, making their damage multiplicative. A huge boom resonated in the jungle; foliage and soil were flung up. As the elf had been impacted by the multiple large claws aimed at him, he smirked. A blue barrier covered in an electric current surrounded the boy and absorbed the full extent of the attack Favian threw at him. A blue light beamed towards the sky with the elf at its centre, and a huge shockwave burst into existence. The whole scenery was turned into a mess as trees were felled. In the aftermath of the shockwave, Favian was flung into the air, before he impacted against a tree with such force that he was knocked unconscious. Both Dunkel and Garu were also damaged by the shockwave, however, the damage they both received was way less than what Favian received. "STOP." the overseer shouted, having been a step too late to stop the carnage on the battlefield. The regular battleground field re-emerged once the overseer spoke, with the trees and foliage seemingly soaking into the ground. He flew onto the ground next to Favian, before creating a shimmering bright light which enveloped Favian''s whole body. The numerous wounds caused by the shockwave were rapidly being healed, a feat most of the people in the crowd marvelled at as this was a display of very high-level magic. The overseer was livid with the situation, as it was his job to protect students from any mishaps during a battle. He had not expected this elven boy to go against the rules stated as he had used a Level 1 Mage spell. "How dare you? I specifically told you that magic of that level is prohibited!" he shouted, his eyes bulging unnaturally. "I''m so sorry I didn''t mean to. He just caught me off guard with his spells, it was an instinct I swear!" the boy spoke with panic apparent in his voice. He had been surprised by the barrage of dark energy that was about to hit him straight on in the arms, so naturally, he did what he could to protect himself in the quickest way possible. Unfortunately, this had been against the rules of the competition, and he would be feeling the consequences of his mistake very soon. Dunkel was somehow still conscious after receiving the shockwave, whilst Garu was also unconscious like Favian. Seeing that aftermath of the fight, Dunkel was like a bull seeing the colour red. He sprinted towards the elf hurling curse words left, right, and centre. Fortunately for him, the overseer was quick to separate the two before another fight started. In the crowd, Licht stared at the battlefield with her hands covering her face, and tears trickling down. She was appalled by the scene, which she felt was completely her own doing. ¡­ Favian woke up in the infirmary of in The Barracks. His chest was currently covered in bandages, and a tray of medicinal herbs was placed next to his bad. "Great, another new room." he said. He scanned the room and realised that he was in some sort of medical room as the smell was similar to that of a hospital. ''Guess I''m just going to have to get used to fainting and waking up in new places at this point.'' he thought to himself cynically. The room he was in was rather small, with a window that looked out into the dark. Moonlight shone into the room, which somehow soothed his body. Favian took a whiff of the contents of the tray beside him, before using them to concoct some herbal tea. He rejoiced at the tranquillity his mind experience once he took a sip from it. A fresh taste of lemon and herbs cleansed his palette, which had been overwhelmed by a metallic taste when he woke up. Favian noticed that there was a note left under the tray where he just made his tea. ''It''s like I''m in a constant state of d¨¦j¨¤ vu.'' The note read out that he should go to the reception area of the infirmary once he woke up, and detailed that his body and health were not damaged in any critical way. ''System, bring up my stats!'' Favian slowly started to remember what had happened previously, how he had been fighting in the colosseum before everything faded to black. Right now he was worried that his cultivation had plummeted due to the fight, despite the note stating that he was fine. For the first time since he had been reincarnated in this strange new world, Elon did not respond to Favian. Favian suddenly felt a pain in his chest, as if he had lost a part of him. The loneliness he felt in the moment was the worst he had ever felt. He was currently stuck on a foreign planet, with nobody who knew who he truly was or where he came from, and the only person that knew him for who he was, was now gone. Favian slowly started to descend into madness, as he realised how vulnerable he would be for the foreseeable future. Not only could he not scan objects and people, but he couldn''t quantify how strong he was himself. He couldn''t instantly learn new spells, and he wouldn''t be able to have the system absorb world energy for his actual body. He could only absorb the energy into the second arcane core he was nurturing, which meant he wouldn''t have an increase in strength for who knows how long. ''I''ve come to rely on you for so long, that I don''t know what to do now.'' Favian''s mind was a complete mess, he didn''t know how he would survive like this. However, the will to survive never left him for even a moment. It would be a lot harder, yet he would not give up. He had already gone through a whole year of pain being imprisoned in time, just because of a minor setback, Favian would not let himself succumb to these demons. *KNOCK* *KNOCK* "Come in." Favian replied to the knock on his room''s door. His voice was hoarser than usual, an after effect of his injuries, he supposed. Walking in through the door was the beautiful elf Favian had gotten to know was called Licht. She wore a dark blue blouse and had trousers on that fitted perfectly on her body, revealing her curvy physique. Favian knew that underneath the clothing, there was a toned and fit body, which was a result of countless hours of training. Favian wasn''t looking as dejected as before she entered the room. Licht hesitated to move forwards as she was stood very close to the door, and after a couple of moments, she resolved herself to move closer to Favian, after which she gave a deep bow. "Wh-What''s wrong?" Favian shouted out, alarmed. He was frozen in thought, not knowing why the girl was here, or why she was being so courteous towards him. She was a princess of the Elven Kingdom after all. It wasn''t in the nature of royalty to lower themselves to the standards of those beneath them, this was information he learned from Dunkel after the copious amount of time they spent together. The girl didn''t look up, not having the heart to be able to say the words she needed to say whilst looking at Favian. "I''m sorry about everything that happened. It was all my fault." Tears were flowing down her face as she said this because she knew that Favian would not have been put in such danger had it not been because of her. She had dismissed Favian''s blunder about her lips when it had happened, however, she was not able to convince her friends to let it go. She could have used her authority as a princess to stop her friends from pursuing the matter, yet she didn''t. "I feel terrible for the trouble I put you through, and when I saw you lying on the floor, I- I..." before she could finish her sentence she burst out into more tears, wailing like a little girl. At this point, she couldn''t control her emotions anymore and fell to the ground in defeat. Favian was startled to his core. He didn''t know what to do. "Hey there''s no need to cry, I mean it wasn''t your fault. You didn''t instigate the battle, and I mean I decided to take the battle. There was a point where he tried to back out, but I didn''t let him." Favian tried to say anything he could to console her, to tell her that she wasn''t in the wrong. It seemed that it slowly worked, and Licht stopped crying, instead she opted to look upwards at Favian. A huge blush reached her face as she realised that she let somebody else see her crying. All she could think about was that her face must have looked ugly as she cried. Even worse, she was on the floor and her clothing revealed her large breasts to Favian from the angle he was looking down at her from. 20 Bloom & Lose "AHHH." Licht screamed before she bolted out of the door. She left so quickly that Favian was starting to doubt that she had come to see him at all. ''Well, that was crazy.'' He thought. His previous depression was gone, and he felt completely rejuvenated by the weird encounter he just had. ''I probably would have gotten some sort of achievement if my system was still here.'' Favian had left the infirmary the morning after, as a nurse had told him he was fine to go. The bandages she had removed from his torso revealed a discolouration on his chest, an after effect of the electrical shockwave he had been attacked with. The scar wasn''t too big, only covering a third of his right chest. It wouldn''t heal away completely unless he used some herbs to treat it, but he found no reason to try to remove it when it would cost him almost 50 contribution points. After he had returned to his room, Favian received a call on his communication device. There were currently only three people that could contact him; Aria, Dunkel and the infirmary. The nurse at the infirmary strongly suggested to him to leave his contact details, as she had already taken care of his comatose self before he arrived at the academy, and now she''d had to take care of him again. "Hello?" Favian asked as he talked into the communications device which was hung on his neck. "Favian! How are you doing? I heard you had injured yourself fighting at the colosseum." Aria asked with a hint of unease in her voice. "Oh and sorry that I couldn''t come and see you at the infirmary, I''ve been preoccupied with some¡­ things." Favian was somehow happy at the worried voice Aria was presenting, it made him feel like he meant something to somebody in this world. He wasn''t as alone as he initially thought. "Ah master Aria, I''m fine no need to worry. I''ve just gotten out of the infirmary, and everything''s in order. Thanks for worrying." He replied as he moved towards his bed before lying down on it. "Well Favian, I have some good news for you. Why don''t you come down to my office?" she asked, her voice much more energetic than before. ''But I want to relax for a bit, I just got back to my room.'' Favian wanted to say. Instead, he simply replied with "Sure thing master." After which he ended the call. Favian threw some punches into the air in defiance before getting off his bed and making his way to Aria''s office. Favian now knew the geography of the academy like the back of his hand, at least all of the areas that allowed students to go to. Certain areas were off-limits and were said to house some very nasty things according to Dunkel. Favian was certain by now that Dunkel was just the reincarnation of a god of rumours since he could always bring up some random piece of information about anything in the academy. "Oh, yea the chefs that make our food are apparently these Kelhagi gnomes, who eat their babies as a sacrifice to their god." "Professor Gigla over there apparently always wears his hood up because he has a second mouth on his forehead." These were only a small portion of the rumours he would talk about day in and day out. Favian already missed his friend, having not seen him for a day felt like too long. By now, the two were inseparable, and would hang out pretty much whenever they had free time. Sometimes, they would also meditate and spar with each other ¨C Favian losing every single sparring session without even the chance to retaliate. Favian soon reached Aria''s office. She was busy working with vials of unknown substances when Favian had entered. Her focused expression lightened once she noticed Favian had come, and with a clap of her hands, she motioned for him to come forward. "Favian look at this." She brought to his attention the vial she had been working on before he came in. Inside was a blueish liquid, which looked extremely similar to seawater. However, as she moved the vial around, the contents of it seemed more like a gloppy solid, almost gelatinous. "This is something I concocted to help you break through your current bottleneck. The nurse examined you as you were fainted, and brought to my attention that the energy particles which she tried to give you to absorb weren''t being absorbed." She looked at Favian and gave him a meaningful look. "Don''t worry, the director already made sure that she won''t talk about your little secret." ''Secret?'' Favian just stood in front of Aria with a confused look on his face, before slowly a realisation built up within him. Sweat was starting to profusely build upon his forehead, and his calm demeanour turned into that of a frightened chicken. "Egast, the headmaster and I have all read the contents of the book you recovered when we were ambushed on our journey to the Culling''s Cliff. I already had my suspicions, but I needed somebody else to verify them for me, which was why I asked Egast to scan you." Her voice was sweet and soft as she spoke. She revealed a smile and continued, "I''ve spent a long time trying to perfect this potion for you, but it should help you with the creation of your second arcane core." She then handed him the potion and asked him to drink it. It felt warm to the touch when Favian grabbed the vial, and the next moment it felt cold. The temperature warped every other second, sometimes being lukewarm or ice cold. Favian gave a sceptical look before jugging down the liquid. The moment the slimy substance came into contact with his throat, he felt a burning sensation take him over. His throat felt like it would burst open because of the heat. The liquid tasted like rotten eggs if they had been mixed with expired milk. After a few moments, Favian could feel a cooling sensation taking over his torso, and the energy moved to the void where his second arcane core was under construction. An uncomfortable sensation washed over the area his second arcane core was housed within his body, close to his lungs. Pressure erupted within the void, and a great amount of pain entered Favian''s mind. His body felt like it was shrivelling, his insides rumbled in defiance as they tried to protect themselves from the source of energy that was eating them up. His face contorted in pain, and he couldn''t help but scream. His muscle fibres and bones were fatiguing at a rapid pace, and seemed to be decomposing. A sizzling sound could even be heard from his body as it was going through a weird metamorphosis. 10 minutes filled with excruciating pain passed. Favian panted hard as he tried to get in as much air into his weakened body, in fear that he would collapse without it. His body felt like a shell of itself, and it felt unusual to try to move it around; It felt like he was trying to pilot somebody else''s body. His muscles were visibly smaller than before. "Ma-Master." he panted. "Why do I feel so weak?" Aria looked at him with sympathy. "The potion I gave you was created by myself to help push you over the bottleneck you were experiencing. It may have taken years before you would have become a full-fledged mage had I not intervened." She continued with sadness in her eyes, her voice quieter than before, "Now I have some good news and some bad news for you. You should have already felt it. Your body should feel a lot weaker than before, and that''s because your arcane core took your body''s vitality to fuel its creation. The substance I gave you acted as a catalyst." Favian inspected his body thoroughly and found that what she said was true. His body felt very weak, and it also looked like the change was currently permanent, at least until he was able to train it back to its former level. Favian was now holding onto Aria''s desk with dear life, fatigue washing over him. He still mustered up the strength to ask, "What''s the good news then master?" Aria started chuckling once she heard his question. She motioned for him to sit down on a chair near the desk. "Wouldn''t want you to faint, now would we? Boy, that was the good news." Favian''s heart sunk, how could that be the good news he thought. He could feel a storm of a headache was about to hit him where it hurt. "The bad news for you is that everything you''ve learnt up to this point has been purged from your mind. All the spells you know are now gone. If you don''t believe me, try chanting for a spell." Aria told Favian with a stern voice. "I would have told you before you drank it, but I wasn''t sure how you''d react to this news." 21 Announcemen Frantically, he tried to chant for the spell bend light, the easiest spell to use out of his arsenal, however, nothing happened. It was like an invisible wall had been put between himself and the arcane particles needed to cast this spell. Again, and again he tried to cast any other spell but to no avail, he couldn''t summon any energy from his body to cast them. Favian slumped down into the chair in defeat. "Why can''t I use my magic?" Favian asked, looking at Aria with puppy dog eyes. The pain and confusion in his voice were apparent, and he was close to having a complete mental breakdown. ''Why do these setbacks keep happening to me.'', ''There must be something wrong with me, it''s all my fault.'' these were a few of the thoughts running through his mind. "The moment you went on the path to study shadow magic, you put yourself in a unique position. You won''t be able to learn any magic from basic or intermediate particles, at least that''s what I hypothesize, but you''ll learn shadow magic slowly again. I''m not sure why, but it has something to do with you having two cores in your body." Aria replied to her dejected student. She tried to console him as much as she could in the only way she knew how to. For the next hour, she made him a variety of tea from medicinal herbs, and gave him lots of rare ingredients to nourish his husk of a body. The transformation had taken a toll on Favian, and he needed to regain as much of his power as soon as possible, lest he becomes too depressed. "Don''t fret too much, with the training I''ll put you through, we''ll whip you back to shape in no time. It''ll just take a lot of determination from you." Aria said as she gave a devilish grin. ''I made a deal with the devil didn''t I.'' Favian thought to himself as he looked at his master, who was enjoying his plight, or that''s the way he saw it at the moment. Favian spent the next few weeks under solitary meditation as ordered by Aria. He had to regain as much of his former power as possible because once he had formed his second core, he became weaker than almost all other apprentices at the academy in terms of raw power. To consolidate two arcane cores meant that the world energy he pulled into his body only worked at half the usual rate, as it had to bolster another entity. Without his game system, this further decreased his speed of cultivation, which could now be said to have been at only a fourth of his usual speed. Slowly, Favian was able to relearn his two shadow spells, time stop and net of shadows, however, the amount of effort it took to get them to this level left him baffled. He needed some way to increase the speed of his training. Favian had not left Aria''s office for almost 2 months, as his meditation room was in the basement of it. The world energy seemed thicker inside it, and made his meditation easier. The only things he did were to eat whenever she brought him food, meditate for as many consecutive days as possible, and sleep only when needed. After two months passed by, his hair had grown longer and thicker. There was barely any black colour to be seen in his hair, instead, it was completely dark purple, with black hues visible at the roots of his hair. His eyes had now similarly turned purple, and the way his hair reached his shoulders gave him a completely new appearance. Favian no longer looked unassuming, and you would be able to remember his face vividly in a crowd. The constant use of precious herbs and large quantities of food that Favian consumed had started to mend his body, and it wasn''t as weak as when he formed his second core. If Favian had to guess, his vital stats were probably all-around 1.1 or 1.2, and his intelligence and arcana should have been close to their normal amount. When Favian attempted to practice casting his spells, he found that it somehow felt like two people in one body. It was like another person was trying to mimic his actions. After further inspection, he realized that this was related to the new arcane core he possessed. Unlike his arcane core which was a purplish-black and felt solid, this new one was a greyish black, and almost ethereal. It was almost as if it didn''t exist whenever he tried to make a deep inspection of it, weaving away from his strands of magic. The spells would fizzle whenever he was about to finish casting them. Favian was hard at work trying to cast his only two known spells, however to no avail. There seemed to be something he was missing in his understanding of them. He had lost all memories of the information contained within the book ''Darkness and Shadows'' after his game system disappeared, and with it, he could only rely on himself to learn these spells again. It did seem, however, that the spells became much more advanced than before, and weren''t at all the same ones he had used. He knew how to use the spells, however, there was some sort of synchronization issue with his body, he hypothesized. He had just been about to put his theory to the test when a knock resounded on his door. "Favian sweetie, it''s about time you leave your secluded training." Aria called out as she entered the room. ''Why knock if you''re just going to come in anyway?'' Favian wanted to ask his master, yet stopped himself from doing. Favian had no belongings to pack up, so he simply left this chamber he had spent his last two months in. He felt somewhat sentimental about leaving this room as he knew the world energy outside was a lot thinner than in here. After two months of gruelling practice, he finally saw sunlight again. The sun rays were difficult to get used to for a couple of minutes, but Favian relished in the way the sun-kissed his face. He was immediately brought to a large room which acted as the academy''s assembly hall. This room was rarely used, however whenever it was used, it was because some important information would be divulged to all of the students. The room was able to house roughly 5 thousand people, about the same amount as the colosseum could. Favian entered the room with his master, however, he was quickly ditched by her as she found some of her friends seated at the staff area of the large hall. Looking around the hall, Favian saw huge banners covered different areas, labelling where staff and student seating areas were, and also divided the seating areas by the different year groups. Being a first-year student, Favian walked to the banner that was meant for him. On his way there, several students would look at him before murmuring to each other. Favian decided to ignore this and instead walked to a friendly face he hadn''t seen in a long time. "Mind if I take a seat here?" Favian asked. "Oh, sure thing, you can sit here... WAIT, Favian is that you? Your hair, what the hell?" Dunkel exclaimed as he saw his closest friend at the academy for the first time in months. He was taken back by how different Favian looked now, especially his hair was pretty striking with its dark purple colour. Quickly he lunged in for a hug, having missed the only person who would listen to his talkative self for prolonged periods. "Haha, how''s it going man? It feels like it''s been a million years since I last saw you." Favian said as he hugged Dunkel back. He missed his only friend deeply and wanted to send him a message telling him he was fine the whole time he''d been training. The realisation that Dunkel was more powerful than himself also acted as a driving force for Favian to keep working hard, and aided in stopping himself from falling too far into depression. He wouldn''t be able to stay friends with Dunkel if he fell too far behind. Just as Favian and Dunkel sat down on their seats, a loud sound was made at the front of the room. Turbulent wind was formed at the main stage, and a boom resounded in the room as a man crashed onto the stage. He slowly stood up and dusted himself off, revealing a blonde man with an apologetic smile. "Everyone, I''d like to announce that as of today, the purging shall begin!" he spoke with a loud voice, making sure that every corner of the room could hear. Gasps of surprise were made by exclusively the first-year students, who numbered the largest out of all the cohorts. All the other students and teacher''s simply sat unfazed as if they knew what was to come. 22 Unexpected ally? "Purging? Why does this sound so ominous Dunkel?" Favian asked his friend. He noticed that only his cohort was fidgeting and riled up, whereas everyone else acted like this announcement was just another mundane aspect of their daily life. Dunkel looked as confused as Favian did and shrugged. He had no clue what was going on either. Instead, he took out an oatmeal bar and started munching away at it. "I know you first-year''s must all be very confused right now, don''t worry I''ll explain. Every year that you study here at the academy, you will be put through a rigorous testing process, so that we can weed out the weak of you, and spend our resources to those deserving of them." The academy''s headmaster, Reckless, looked around the room as he said this, his eyes meeting Favian''s for a split second. Or at least Favian thought they did. "You will be placed in groups of four, and sent into a beast range far away from the academy. You will spend 1 month there fighting for your life, and only those that survive will continue with their studies at the Dusk Academy!" he exclaimed. The headmaster continued to explain that groups could be formed by the students themselves and that they had a 1-day limit where they could choose their members, after which they would be allocated randomly amongst other groups. He led them to believe that they were completely on their own once they reached the beast ranges, however, a teacher would always be shadowing the various groups. They couldn''t just let students die off pointlessly if they wanted to continue having a good standing with the various kingdoms. The assembly ended, and with it, the first-year students could be seen scrambling around trying to get all of their friends together in the party of 4 allowed for this test. Favian and Dunkel decided to pair up with each other. It was a no-brainer for the two best friends. "I don''t really care who else joins the group, I mean we can just wait until the deadline and sign up together, and get two random people through the ballot," Dunkel said as he and Favian were walking away from the assembly hall, towards the dining area. They walked at a slow and steady pace, taking in the views of the academy. Whilst they were calm and collected, lots of students were pacing around past them, hurrying off to different places as if their life depended on it. These people were probably trying to go to vendors to buy items that would help them out for the 1-month trial they were about to take part in. Favian and Dunkel reached the dining hall, which was relatively empty. Usually, it would be full of students, but right now it was understandably vacant. The two grabbed some food, before sitting down at a table in front of a window which looked down on an orchard. Berries and fruits were being grown in this orchard and were used to create alcohol. Of course, the drinking age on the continent was 16, so Favian still had to wait a couple more months before he could drown away his sorrows with alcohol if need be. Dunkel went over some important things with Favian about beast ranges. He first explained that beast ranges were large swathes of land that were inhabited almost mainly by magical beasts and rare fauna. These areas housed stronger beasts further in, as the concentration of arcana was thicker there. Some beasts would also gain sentience, and be able to speak languages or shape-shift themselves from a magical beast form into a more human-like form. "There are even treasure troves and ancient relics that can be found if you look hard enough." A voice called out from behind the two. Licht carefully trotted to an empty seat by the two boys. "So, uh, Favian, have you already partied yourself up in a group?" A sweet fragrance of perfume entered Favian''s nose as she asked this. "Licht!" Favian had been slightly startled, remembering how she stormed out of the infirmary months ago after he''d been injured. He hadn''t seen her in those two months, so he half expected her to have forgotten about him. "No, I''ve just partied up with Dunkel so far. We were going to just have two more random people join us since we don''t know any other people we can trust." He said as he looked firmly into Licht''s eyes. She became slightly flushed at his intense gaze, before she continued, "Well, how about I party up with you two? I don''t see anything wrong with that." At this point, Dunkel lost his cool and remarked, "Well, of course, you wouldn''t see anything wrong with that. How about you just try to kill Favian yourself this time, your majesty." Favian was warmed by the protectiveness Dunkel was displaying over himself and knew that this outburst came out of a good place. "Dunkel, don''t worry, she already apologized to me after the colosseum, let''s hear her out at least." "Thanks, Favian. Anyway, I''m sure we can all agree that the three of us are probably some of the strongest students in our cohort, so why don''t we team up? You two can even decide who our final member will be." Licht said. Favian wasn''t sure about how he currently felt being called ''one of the strongest students'' when he didn''t know how strong he was right now. He had finally felt a breakthrough earlier this morning, however, he hadn''t yet been able to test it. ''Hate to break your bubble Licht but I might well be useless right now.'' Favian thought. Dunkel was still a bit sceptical about letting Licht party together with them, yet, hearing that she had already made her way to Favian to apologise calmed his temper. He was simple in this way. With that, the three officially signed up together and put themselves on the waiting list for their last party member. "I wonder what type of person we''ll get for our last member," Dunkel said. The trio was eating puff pastries at the Elegantia Caf¨¦. Licht was ravenously chowing down on her choice of doughnuts and puff pastries, before she stopped and said, "Hopefully they''ll be a girl. I don''t want to be stuck with 3 smelly boys for an entire month." She giggled after she said this, and wiped away the crumbs that were littered on her face. ''Another glutton.'' Dunkel thought as he facepalmed. He was now seriously contemplating whether to just change group because he had two party members who ate like monsters. How much food would they have to hunt if they ran out of supplies, just to satisfy these two greedy people? Favian enjoyed the playful nature that Dunkel and Licht were quickly creating between each other. A lot of the animosity Dunkel had felt against Licht had dissipated once they were able to talk properly to each other, and they seemed like brother and sister with the way they bantered with one another. It was a complete shock to both Favian and Dunkel that the personality of an elven royalty would be so laid-back and boisterous, especially when she had been so quiet and apprehensive when they first met her. "Well, I guess we''ll find out tomorrow. Anyways, I think I''m going to go and head off to sleep, I''ll see you two tomorrow at the assembly hall." Favian said, after which he got up and started to walk back to his room. Favian drifted off to sleep quickly once he got back to his room. ¡­ In Favian''s dream "Hello? Anybody there?" I called out, but nothing came in response. I was shrouded in darkness, and couldn''t see my hands when I put them in front of my face. Slowly I walked forwards, making sure I didn''t trip over, hoping that I don''t fall into a pit or chasm to an untimely death. After walking for what seemed like an eternity, I could finally see some light. The brightness hurt my eyes, but I soldiered through the pain. What I approached was a mountain, and a staircase was built into it. The stairs went all the way up into the heavens, the clouds masking where their end was. Again, I walked for an endless amount of time, the harsh wind threatening to blow me off the mountain and to a gruesome death. By now the cold started to affect me, and I shivered continuously as I made my ascent. Finally, I was able to reach the top of the mountain, and here the stairs ended. A cave. A dark cave awaited me, it called to me, my own voice, from within the cave. I was scared, I didn''t know whether to enter. Something compelled me, I didn''t want to make the trek back down the endless stairs. Once again, darkness took over my sight. But only for a moment. I could see again, but wait, why can I see myself walking towards me? Confusion. I was so confused. My vision kept switching between myself who was walking in the cave, and my other self who was¡­ standing idly in the cave. I felt a connection between the two me''s, and now I could freely control both. I fall. ¡­ 23 Lich "Haha, I''ve got you now John." A little girl shouted as she jumped onto a larger boy''s back, who had been hiding behind a stone pillar. The little girl giggled and laughed as she continued to play hide and seek with her older brother, causing a ruckus throughout the household. Glees of joy could always be heard from within the royal palace of the Elven Kingdom. A large forest surrounded the royal palace, which was built on the land in the kingdom which held the highest concentration of arcana. The area around the palace was filled with colourful plants and flowers, and a vibrant ecosystem was held her, with the elves living in unison with the land. It could be said that if the land wept, then so did the elves, they held a special connection with it. "Gael, when do you think papa and mama will finally teach me magic?" Licht asked her older brother. She''d just recently turned four, and couldn''t wait to be taught in the mystical arts. She had always seen her brother, who was ten, practising magic, for as long as she could remember. She''d been envious of the amount of attention her father gave to him, and he would always talk for what seemed like hours about ''My Gael is so talented'' or ''Gael will make a good leader in the future''. This, of course, didn''t change the relationship she had with her brother. He was still her best friend, and the strongest person ever, as she would usually say when she bragged about him to the maids and waiting staff at the palace. The attention which she didn''t get from her father acted as fuel to her for wanting to practice magic. There wasn''t a day when she wouldn''t ask Gael the same question "When will I learn magic?" "Licht, you aren''t strong enough to practice magic yet. Mum and Dad are just worried that you''ll hurt yourself if you start practising now. Maybe in a few years, you''ll learn some magic." Licht never took well to being told that she wasn''t yet allowed to learn magic, so she started to train in secret. She would mimic the physical exercise that Gael always did whenever nobody was around and memorized the chants that her brother used to cast magic, and the way he meditated in his free time. Like this, 3 years passed. Licht had a slightly better physique than before, partially due to her natural growth and also because of the physical exercise she would do. She wasn''t able to practice as much as she''d wanted, because she was still home-schooled for the majority of the day, learning about classical studies and other things deemed important for a member of the royal family to know. On the day of Gael''s 13th birthday, instead of joy and happiness that was usually circulating the royal palace, a certain hint of sadness was present. This atmosphere was mainly radiating from Licht, who was sad to see that her brother leave. He was now of age to be enrolled in the elven royal academy, where he would learn to become the future ruler of the kingdom. Licht sobbed and cried the whole evening, begging her parents to let her go to the academy with her brother, but to no avail. She was too young, and still wasn''t taught any magic, so all they could do was try to calm her down. News of Gael''s studying would be brought back home frequently, and Licht would always light up whenever she could hear stories about his exploits. There was one time where Licht didn''t stop laughing for a whole day because her brother had his eyebrows and hair burned off in an alchemy accident, and when he came home for the holidays, his bald head and face made him look like a big baby. Gael would come home at the end of every semester, spending 9 months at the academy and 3 months at home. This continued on for the next few years, the bond between brother and sister as strong as ever. That was until Licht turned ten. Gael had suddenly gone missing off the planet. No tracking device could find him, not even the most expensive materials the King and Queen used were able to deduce what happened to their son. Experts were called from all over the continent, yet, still, his whereabouts were unknown. Deep down, Licht felt that she would''ve been happier had she known for a fact that her brother died. It was the constant unease of not knowing what had happened to him that caused her to become struck with grief. The loss of her brother pained her, and all of the memories she had in the Elven Kingdom would constantly bring a flood of thoughts about Gael. Licht was able to convince her parents to let her study outside the Elven Kingdom, as they both could see that the elven lands were depressing their daughter deeply. Had they not recently given birth to another boy, then they would not have let Licht leave the kingdom, in constant fear of the death of their only heir. It was decided that Licht would study at the Dusk Academy, the Elven King had close ties to the headmaster of the academy, and trusted him to be able to keep his only daughter safe from harm. There was also no issue with sending members of different races to the magical academies as they worked independently of the kingdoms of the continent. To this day, Licht would still think about her lost brother, hoping that one day she could solve the mystery of his disappearance. It fuelled her to train harder than ever and was the reason why she not only learned magic but also adamantly learned martial arts and swordplay. Despite her timid and cute appearance and her shy nature, she was extremely powerful in close range combat, wielding a sword in one hand and magic in the other. ... "Ahh!" Favian woke up from his slumber with a jolt, having woken up just before he impacted the ground in his dream. ''That was a... weird dream.'' he thought, as he wiped away the sweat that had built on his brow. Favian got himself ready with a shower and quickly grabbed a bite of an apple for breakfast before he left his room to buy some supplies. He still had 250 contribution points left, and even when he tried to deplete them quicker, it seemed difficult to reduce the number by just eating food and buying materials that aided in meditation. The first thing Favian did was buy some books that detailed all the different beast ranges on the continent. He would take this with him and study it along the way, as it was stated that every group would be randomly allocated to a different location on the continent. These beast ranges made up the most area of Ortu Solis, taking up almost 75% of all land. This meant that it was almost guaranteed that no two groups from the academy would encounter each other during this test. Afterwards, Favian went to the blacksmith, where he had already ordered some leather armour previously to wear. He thought it was a lot more useful to wear light, flexible armour than to wear a mage''s robe. Protection over flashiness was what he was going for. Favian then went and bought a spacial pouch, which would let him store any items inside it, removing the weight of the items and allowing him to put almost an infinite number of items inside. This had cost a heft 100 contribution points, the most expensive item he had bought yet. In the spatial pouch, he placed all of his clothing, his newly bought book, some daggers, a lot of food and potions. The potions he bought were just a precaution, in case somebody took near fatal damage. At 10 contribution points each, it would be able to save the life of a person near death. He now had a total of 5 of these potions. ''Damn, I only have 30 contribution points left. At least I know that we can earn more contribution points if we do really well in this test.'' Finally, after Favian had gotten everything in order, he went to the assembly hall and met up with Licht and Dunkel. Today was the day they would be meeting their fourth party member. Favian was excited in some way, he hoped that he could make another friend if possible, but didn''t put all of his hopes on it. More connections were always good, and he knew this from his previous life. Yet, Favian had always been bad at putting himself out there to create these new connections, networking wasn''t his strong suit. The trio walked up to Professor Mildred, who was to oversee their group work and assign them to their beast range. Mildred was a very old lady, her hair already grey, and a hunch visible on her back. Even for a magician, she was relatively old. "Professor, we''re here to find the last member of our group," Dunkel said, handing her the form which contained all of their information. Dunkel was currently wearing leather armour similarly to Favian, having opted for a stealthy and breathable armour. Licht, on the other hand, was now wearing some chainmail and plate armour. Professor Mildred looked at the three and laughed. "You will go as a group of three," she said, her voice quiet rough, not at all what Favian had expected. 24 Beast Range 1 "What?" exclaimed all three of them at the same time, confusion evident in their voices. "Now now little ones. It wouldn''t exactly be fair for you to have a fourth member, considering the talent each of you possesses. You''ll have to make do with a little handicap since you wanted to pair up with each other so badly." Professor Mildred said. A slight chuckle left her mouth, and the old lady passed each of them a small blue gem. The gem felt cold to the touch once Favian got his hands on it. Looking deeper into it, he saw what looked like the ocean, and could even smell the seawater from it. After a quick inspection, Favian noticed that he could push some arcana into the stone, however, he didn''t know what its effect would be. Professor Mildred smiled seeing Favian''s curiosity. "That''s a distress stone. It''ll signal to one of us professor''s that you need urgent help. Be warned though, using this will immediately disqualify you if you didn''t pass the first month of testing." "First month? I thought the whole test lasts only for one month professor." Licht jumped in once she heard this conflicting piece of information. The headmaster had stated before that they would spend 1 month in the beast range. The professor quickly started to sweat a tiny bit, having been flustered by Licht picking up on her leak of information. "Sorry honey, I didn''t quite catch that. Oh wait, look at the time. My cookies are going to be done at any moment. Good luck you three." Mildred exclaimed as she made her way away from the bunch as fast as possible, having feigned deafness. "That was.." Favian looked at the seemingly ancient woman breeze past them and towards the entrance of the assembly hall, her strides faster than even his own would be capable of. "Really weird. That was really weird Favian." Dunkel finished the sentence Favian was not about to finish anytime soon. After all of the groups had been assembled in the hall, the students were finally transported to their various locations. One by one, groups were taken into an inconspicuous door that stood to the side of the platform of the hall, where the headmaster had previously been stood giving his speech. The door was very simple, with just a metal doorknob hanging off it. Favian stood in the queue with Dunkel and Licht, and just like most of the other students, they murmured, wondering what was behind that damn door. It was the first time that he''d seen the door, not having noticed it during yesterday''s assembly. Now that he was aware of it, he could feel large amounts of energy pulsating from behind the door. "How on Earth did they manage to hide so much energy when we had the assembly? I didn''t even notice it at all!" Favian said. His progress to the front of the queue was relatively slow, with his group currently in the middle. Licht stared at Favian with a confused look. "What is Earth, Favian?" she asked. ''Oh my God, why did I slip up. I''ve got to stop using that phrase.'' Favian thought, reprimanding himself strictly. "Oh it''s nothing, just a figure of speech." he replied, not looking at Licht as he said so. Licht looked at him suspiciously but didn''t push him for the information. "I think there''s some barrier placed on the door, or the energy behind it was dormant until today. Who knows?" Dunkel shrugged as he said this. After approximately an hour, the trio finally reached the front of the line. It was now their turn to enter the room, and see what awaited them. A teacher waved at them to come over when it was their turn, and opened the door for them. The rush of energy that Favian felt when he entered the room was amazing. ''I don''t know how to put it, but this feels like the most arcana in a single place I''ve experienced yet.'' Licht and Dunkel, on the other hand, weren''t too impressed with this amount of arcana in the air, acting like this was just another normal existence. All three of them were gobsmacked once they saw the room, however. An empty room. In front of the three was just a small, empty room, with absolutely nothing inside it. The only thing that made this room unique was that there was some sort of rune circle on the floor, and the headmaster was currently stood inside. Quickly the three bowed. Just as they were about to speak out their group name, the headmaster stopped them. "Haha no need for introductions, I know you three as well as I do my own children." Headmaster Reckless exclaimed. "I''ve had eyes on the two of you since before you even arrived at the academy." he looked at Dunkel and Licht as he said that. His sharp eyes met Favian''s upon which he gave a big smile. "You though, Favian, I haven''t had the pleasure to find out as much about. I know who you are, but then, who are you really boy?" ''What? Does he know what I am? There''s no way, he couldn''t.'' Favian was now freaking out, the headmaster seemed extremely perceptive. As this internal monologue was going on, Reckless simply winked at Favian, almost as if he was listening to his thoughts. "Let''s get started shall we. You already know why you have no fourth member, so I expect great things from you all. I''m going to place you in the middle of the Kalari Desert. Now come, step onto this sigil." the headmaster said, his voice energetic, putting even Dunkel''s usual energy to shame. As the three walked up towards the sigil, the headmaster touched each of their heads, having transmitted some information to them. Moments after, the room lit up in a bright green glow, blinding the three. A feeling of weightlessness took over Favian, and then a feeling of nausea came after. Favian fought to try and keep himself from vomiting, but it was futile. He wretched forward and hurled vomit like a projectile, stopping only after 10 seconds full of spewing. Patting on his back brought Favian back to his senses, after which he quickly pulled out some water from his space pouch and rinsed his mouth, gurgling on the water until it felt right to spit it out on the floor. The floor now consisted of dark red particles, which seemed like it was blood-soaked. Favian realised that this was the sand and that he was now in the desert. Favian looked around to see something that would completely shift the way he thought about the continent of Ortu Solis. He was in a desert, yet there were mountains and trees everywhere in the vicinity. ''This is impossible, there''s got to be no rainfall here, and the sand doesn''t have the nutrients needed to allow trees to grow'' he thought. He quickly concluded that there must be some unknown reason related to arcana that caused this. The sun was still high on the horizon, and the blistering heat pounded onto the group. Their vision was filled with an endless road of large trees. In the air, there were even floating landmasses, with the what seemed like the same ecosystem as what they stood on. "So, what did the headmaster tell you all? He clearly transmitted some different information to us all." Dunkel was alert of his surroundings, but still found the time to create idle chit chat. "Nothing much, he just asked that I make my father proud." Licht said with little emotion. She was no longer the little girl seeking for constant approval from her parents. "What about you Dunkel?" "Oh, he just said something about me not creating too many problems for us. I mean, he ain''t wrong, but we''ll be fine don''t worry." Dunkel nonchalantly said. Again, he shrugged his shoulders, this having become his signature move by now. "What about you Favian?" Favian somehow had managed to completely forget the information transmit that had happened, but it quickly flowed back into his mind. His face went white as a sheet, and fear was evident on it. "Hey, are you okay?" Dunkel asked, as he saw his friend, who had just vomited, become as pale as a ghost. "Nothing to worry about. Anyways, what should we do now?" Favian asked, trying his best to divert the attention away from himself. All he could currently think about was the headmaster saying, "I expect lots from you Mr. Umbra." when he linked his mind to Favian''s. ''How does he know my last name is Umbra? I don''t have a last name because this boy was an orphan.'' Favian came to the realisation that the headmaster knew a lot more about himself than he would ever have thought possible. ''Where the hell did I trip up?'' 25 Beast Range 2 Favian pushed the thoughts of the headmaster to the back of his mind after Licht and Dunkel were starting to get worried about him. He instead started to formulate a plan about what they should do. The first thing Favian did was to open up the tome which contained information about every beast range on the continent. After scrolling through the page of contents, he was able to find the Kalari Desert. "It seems that there are some pretty strong beasts here. It says there are poison camels, blood wyrms and even fire dragons. But the most common beast in the outer area of the range is the sand wolf. It says that they are always in packs and are nocturnal." Favian said. "Well, we sure as hell won''t live to tell the tale if we encounter a dragon." Dunkel laughed as he said this. The group went on to discuss what their priorities were in this unknown place, which they unanimously agreed to be finding shelter. Usually, they would need to find water, but since they all had their own spacial pouches filled with food, water and other items, they didn''t need to worry about this step. "Okay, looks like we still have about 10 hours left until nighttime, so we have lots of time to find a suitable spot. If there are caves somewhere that''d be nice, but it doesn''t look like there will be we can find before nightfall." Licht voiced her opinion as she munched on a snack that looked a lot like beef jerky. The group proceeded to venture around the area, looking for a suitable spot to create their base of operations. The most appropriate place would have only one way of entry and be highly camouflaged in some sort of way. They would also want to make sure that there weren''t many magical beasts in the vicinity. They passed lakes and ponds on their way, and even had some close encounters with magical beasts, but were able to detour around them. Dunkel was in charge of leading them to their camping site, as he had the most experience out of all of them in living in the wilderness. His home was literally part of a large magical woods, surrounded by magical beasts. After about 3 hours of searching, the group was finally able to find an area suitable to make a temporary home. They had reached an area covered densely in greenery, with tall trees and lots of foliage covering it, and there was a lake not too far from this area. The best part about this spot was that there was a large hill which they could use as protection from the rear. Dunkel went to the brown sandhill, before touching it with his hands. He was deep in thought for ten minutes before he stopped, removing his hand from it. "Okay the coast is clear people, I don''t spot any nasty critters inside that hill, so we can use this place for our base." Quickly they set up their camp, with the tents that all three of them had been given by the academy staff as they waited in line for teleportation. It only took a couple of minutes for everything to be complete, and they then placed bits of foliage onto their tents to hide them further from prying eyes. Favian started to realise that taking monster hunting as a lesson was extremely useful in this situation, as it not only taught about how to live in the wilderness, but it also gave extremely important information on the different types of magical beasts, which they would inevitably encounter. "I''m bored... Should we take a stroll or something?" Dunkel asked. He''d already changed into his leather combat outfit, and had a bow readied on his back. Licht just came out of her tent as Dunkel asked this question. She was now wearing her heavy armour. It gleamed with a bright light, and the utmost detail had been put into polishing it. She currently had her longsword on her side, and a shield on her back. She''d use a shield depending on whether she was the main source of protection for her party, or simply a sword in on hand and magic in the other for maximum damage output if she didn''t need to tank. "I mean we''ve got a whole month to spend out here, why don''t we just take it easy for the first day," she replied. She wore her armour out of vigilance, she instead wanted to just rest and meditate for a while. "Pleaase, I really can''t sit idly here, its already suffocating me," Dunkel said with puppy dog eyes, looking at Favian trying to incite some sympathy. Favian was now in his own dark black leather armour, his daggers sheathed on the side of his belt, and his face covered by a mask. He himself was also raring to go fight some creatures, wanting to test out the powers he felt like he had awakened. "I''m down for it, I mean, let''s just fight something easy for now," he replied. Licht looked at the two as if they were monsters, or rather, idiots. "Fine." she sighed, dramatically stomping towards the two who had already made their way away from the camp. The group made their way towards the lake they had previously walked past. It wasn''t too large of a body of water, and could accommodate about 20 different animals for drinking at a time. The water glistened in a green light, and shadows of fish could be seen darting across. They walked slowly and carefully to get closer to the lake, making sure they made as little noise as possible. *ROAR* *AWOO* *AWOO* "What the hell," Favian whispered as he looked at the two others. He could hear some sort of commotion close to where he was right now. He was pretty certain that there must be some beasts fighting in the vicinity, as he heard two distinctly different sounds. Licht and Dunkel stared at Favian, blank-eyed. "What''s wrong?" Licht asked. "Didn''t you just hear that? It sounds like some beasts are fighting near us!" Favian replied, shocked that she hadn''t heard a single thing. "Uhh, I think that''s just you bro. I don''t hear a single thing." Dunkel said. "Are you alright? I mean I know this is ur first time in a beast range, but there''s no need to be so scared." "What? No seriously I can hear some beasts fighting, they''re so close to us. Just follow me!" Favian was slightly embarrassed, but he trusted his instincts. ''Why can I hear the commotion but they can''t?'' he thought to himself. Quickly Favian weaved through the woods, taking what he felt was the most effective route towards his destination. He could hear the beast roars even louder now, but they were nowhere to be seen. They had already travelled for a whole kilometre, and there was nothing in sight. "Hey man, are you sure about there being be-" Dunkel couldn''t finish his sentence because now he could also hear the roars of different beasts. The woody area ended about 100 meters away from where the group stood, replaced by an empty desert. "Shh, follow me," he said, as he motioned the two to walk quietly with him towards the edge of the woods. Once they reached the edge, Favian could make out what was fighting. There were 4 wolf-like animals, with reddish-brown skin and huge fangs, fighting against a lone elephant beast. The elephant had long tusks and fur making it resemble more of a mammoth, and despite it towering over the wolves, it couldn''t seem to get the upper hand. Whenever it would stomp at a wolf or try to impale them with its sharp tusks, they would be able to move out of the way in just the last second. The wolves weren''t small by any means, each reaching 2 meters whilst on their paws. The elephant was simply gargantuan. "What should we do?" Licht asked, ready to charge at any moment. Favian wasn''t experienced in battling monsters yet. He had learned much about it during lessons but didn''t have practical experience. He, therefore, looked to Dunkel for answers, as he also took the same lessons on monster hunting, but had prior experience in battling creatures. "I''ve got an idea, it shouldn''t be too risky either. We''ll wait for them to damage the elephant to the point it can''t run away, and then we attack the wolves. Two birds with one stone," Dunkel said. Favian immediately agreed with the idea, not wanting to prematurely enter the battle which would mean they''d have to fight both the wolves and the elephant at once. The group waited for 30 minutes under the cover of the edge of the woods, before finally, they saw their signal to go. The elephant''s legs were slowly starting to buckle, and it was only a matter of seconds before it would fall in exhaustion. Licht charged into the fray, somehow making the 100-meter distance between the woods and the beast fight within 5 seconds. Her heavy armour seemed to be of no detriment to her sprinting speed. Her sword and shield in hand, Licht slashed towards the closest wolf, catching it off guard, and slicing away one of its legs. The wolf howled in pain, causing for the others to quickly bring their attention to the intruder. 26 First Hun "AWOOOO" the wolf screamed, as it hung its head into the air. Just as another wolf was about to flank Licht, Dunkel reached out from his raven feathered bow, which he had conjured prior to Licht''s charge, and flung a large arrow made of dark energy at the wolf. The arrow crashed into the wolf, severing its head from its body, as it was jumping. The wolf''s carcass fell onto the ground behind Licht, its eyes still open in shock. The two other wolves noticed their slain companion, and decided to retreat for the moment, leaving behind their legless friend to fend for himself. Beasts that lived in these ranges, which were filled to the brim with arcana, had extremely good instincts. The quick thinking of the beasts would usually have secured their safe retreat, however, today wasn''t their lucky day. Licht charged forward, cutting off their escape route, after which she cast a barrier around herself and her enemies. The barrier was 10 meters in diameter and glowed green. The wolves attempted to jump out of it, yet their bodies were flung back as they impacted against the barrier. The wolves finally realised that they couldn''t leave without defeating Licht. Snarling, they both charged head-on at her. As this was going on, Dunkel decided to disperse his magical bow. "I think she''s got this on her own, only two of them can''t hurt her," he said nonchalantly. The fight ended quickly, with Licht overpowering the wolves quickly, having used magic to sap away their agility. Even without this, Licht was just as agile and fast as them, so there was never a situation where she would have lost against 2 healthy wolves and a disabled one. Favian proceeded to remove the magical cores from the beasts, after killing the collapsed elephant. The magical cores of these beasts were useful for meditation, and could speed up the intake of arcana by many times the level of the atmosphere. Unfortunately, beast cores weren''t the only ones that could be utilized for meditation. There were various underground organizations that supplied human, elf, dwarven, and many other cores to the highest bidders. It seemed that those cores were the most effective, outside of those from legendary beasts. "Well I did so much work here." Favian joked, feeling slightly left out as he wasn''t able to contribute to the fight. He tried to make up for that by recovering the beast cores in their best conditions, however, he managed to destroy two of the wolf cores by accident. The rest he was able to keep spotless. "Don''t worry about it buddy. You''re the whole reason we found these easy targets. Keep the elephant core, Licht and I will keep one of the wolf cores each." Dunkel said, patting Favian on the shoulders. "Yea don''t worry too much, you''ll get to show just how powerful you are soon. In the meantime, wanna help me skin this elephant? The lustre coming off its fur tells me that it''ll act as the perfect defence for our tents against the cold of the night." Licht spoke. Just as Favian was walking towards Licht to help her, he suddenly heard a loud noise. What followed felt like an earthquake, the ground trembled under the force of an even larger, gigantic elephant. The elephant made a deafening trumpet with its trunk, as it charged towards the group. It was enraged, seeing Licht cutting into its child. "F*ck, RUN!" Favian screamed as he sprinted off towards the woods, only 90 meters away. Favian sprinted with all his might, however, his speed wasn''t as fast as Licht and Dunkel''s, who had already made it to the boundary between the desert and forest, whilst Favian was still 50 meters away. The adult elephant was getting closer and closer to Favian, at a frightening pace. He realised that he wouldn''t be able to outrun the animal, so he stopped in his tracks, and started chanting. ''I know that there''s some god of luck somewhere out there, and if you can hear me, please, please, please let me cast this spell before I''m trampled to death.'' Favian thought to himself. He''d made the choice to stand and cast in a split second, however, his processing of information was already at a level that it only took him that long to recognize the disparity between his speed and the elephants, and know that he wouldn''t make it to the forest in time. Favian had yet to successfully cast any of his spells, ever since he''d formed his second core. There seemed to be some sort of issue with the way he was forming the energy, and it would always fizzle right at the last moment. To him, it felt like the energy wasn''t integrating properly with his body, whenever he tried to summon the arcane particles from it. This time Favian tried something new, out of desperation. Instead of trying to project his arcane out of his body via only his first core, this time he let the warm particles flow from his first core, into his second, before letting the energy out of his body. Favian felt ablaze deep within, after which something burst inside him with a PUH, resonating throughout his body and projecting his magic outwards. "Time Stop," Favian shouted as he thrust out his spell. This time, the spell didn''t fail. Favian''s surroundings turned black and grey, with purple wisps floating around wherever he looked. As the spell was cast, something completely out of his expectations occurred. His second core became agitated, before it flew out of his body, into the surroundings. ''Finally, I did it.'' he thought to himself, rejoicing that he could cast spells again. Time was frozen around him, and he could see that Dunkel and Licht were looking at him with fear on their faces. The elephant left a trail of dust behind it as it stood motionless, with two feet in the air. Favian ran towards the woods, which only took a couple of seconds. He heaved and puffed as he finally made it out of danger, and tried to deactivate his spell. He kept trying and trying however he couldn''t make time flow again. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something peculiar. He saw a shadowy figure standing by a large oak tree. The closer he walked to it, the more he felt connected to the shadow. Something was calling from within him, asking him to connect with the mysterious figure, which just stood there, unmoving. Giving it a closer look, the figure seemed about his own height and build, and its hair mirrored his own, just instead of a dark purple colour, the hair was completely black. Everything about it was similar to Favian, except for it being made out of what seemed like shadows. Favian released some energy from himself, trying to connect it with the shadow. It took him a couple tries to successfully grasp onto the shadow, which was weaving away wherever his magic went. The moment he came in contact with the shadow''s arcane core, he felt his head split. His mind was torn in half, but then regenerated itself quickly. "AHHH, what the hell," Favian screamed. "AHHH, what the hell." the shadow screamed. ... (Insert surprised Pikachu face) ''Is that... me?'' Favian asked himself, baffled by the outburst the shadow made at the same time he did. He quickly spoke more words and did other actions, and as he expected, the shadow mimicked everything he did. ''Interesting, what happens when I try this?'' he thought, as he attempted to replicate what he''d done in the peculiar dream he''d had yesterday. He found that his second core was within the shadow, so he poured some mana into it. Nothing happened. He continued pouring more mana in, but still, nothing happened. It was only when he had poured exactly half of his total mana in that his theory was proven correct. "Woah this is insane." Favian felt his mind sync with the shadow. It felt weird being in control of a foreign entity, however it didn''t take too long for him to get used to it. At first, it felt like walking in thick mud after it had rained, whilst carrying an aggressive lion on your back. Now, it felt more like walking through mud whilst riding a pet lion, he still wasn''t perfect at it, but it was substantially easier. His thoughts were present in the shadow, and he could control it. It was more of an extension of himself, rather than a copy. He didn''t need to focus his attention on embodying the shadow, because it was part of him. The purple wisps of energy left Favian''s vision, and the vibrant colour of the world returned as his time-lock finally ran out of power. Quickly, Favian ran to his friends and pushed them further into the woods with him. Once they had reached their camp, the group finally was able to catch a breather. "Woah that was close. Wait, what the hell, Favian how did you do that?" Dunkel shouted, still not able to believe his eyes. First, he remembered seeing Favian running away from the elephant, about to get crunched underneath it, and the next second Favian is running at them from a completely different direction. "You idiot. Shouldn''t we be asking about WHAT THE HELL THAT THING IS?" Licht pointed at the shadowy figure that was chilling behind him. 27 The Shadow Only now did Dunkel realise that there was something stood behind Favian. He''d been too busy running for his life that he didn''t pay too much attention to his friend. Now that he looked at what was behind Favian, he only saw what seemed to by an apparition cloaked in shadows. Its form wasn''t solid or corporeal, it looked more like a spirit or ghost that he''d heard about in the stories in grandma used to tell him. Curiosity got the better of him, and, seeing as it didn''t look hostile, he slowly walked up to it. "Wait what are you doing?" Licht asked, however, the question fell on deaf ears. Dunkel pushed his hand into the shadow. As his hand went into its body, he could only feel a cold sensation and nothing else. He then wiggled his fingers around, trying to see if there was anything inside it. "Hey, that tickles!" Favian shouted. The moment Dunkel put his hand into the shadow, the sensation came to him. It felt like somebody tickling the soles of his feet, however, now the feeling was all over his body. Favian was now hugging himself trying to stop the laughter that was rising out. "Seriously sto- stop it." Dunkel finally gave up on his observations when he found that he couldn''t understand the spectre. "So... Favian, wanna explain something to us?" he asked. Favian scratched his head as he tried to figure out how to explain this situation. He made his shadow mimic every action he did, whilst letting it take the lead with speaking. "Well, uhm, yea. This is me, well a part of me I guess. Or half of me? I don''t really know how to describe it." Favian''s shadow said, its voice the exact same as Favian''s, except it sounded a bit deeper and muffled. The usual body movements the two had come to recognize Favian by, they now saw "It''s part of the technique that I practice. Some forbidden stuff I''m pretty sure, since nobody on the continent really knows about it. Anyways, sorry to have kept this from you, but I didn''t really know this was going to happen either. Just took my by surprise." Favian, this time, spoke. Licht and Dunkel were shocked at first, however, they were able to come to terms with the concept soon enough. They lived in a world filled with magical beasts, ghosts, demons and all sorts of other mystical entities, so they were able to adapt to the situation quickly. "I guess we have a group of four then," Dunkel said. This comment made Licht fall into a fit of laughing, and not long after the trio could be seen laughing their heads off at their camp. "Okay everyone let''s not attract too much attention to ourselves here. We don''t want any monsters hunting us," Favian said. The group proceeded to each take the beast cores that they''d gotten as spoils of war, and enter their separate tents before meditating with them. Usually, they would have had one person stay as the lookout, as they''d been taught at the academy, but Favian was adamant that his shadow was up for the task. Soon, nighttime fell, and the previously beautiful woods became much darker and ominous. Favian''s whole arcana and mana pool were now halved, at least for as long as he sustained his shadow. He''d tweaked around with it for a bit whilst he was in his tent, but he realised he could turn the spell on and off at will. Whenever he turned it off, half of his total mana pool was rejuvenated. He could even swap positions with his clone, which he did, to his dismay, unknowingly. The shock he received from jumping through space was enough to make him more careful in the probing of his new skillset. Even greater news was that he could cast the only two spells he currently knew, Time Stop and Net of Shadows from his clone. The different tactics that this allowed him to come up with were endless. All he had to do now, was put them to the test. ''It''s a shame that my shadow''s range isn''t unlimited. Seems like he can only move about 1 kilometre away from my body. But that''s still a freaking huge distance,'' he thought. This meant that he could teleport a whole kilometre away if he was in danger, as long as he planned this prior to the danger. ''The only downside right now, is that I have absolutely no offensive ability. I''m pretty much stuck with being utility personnel in this party.'' After spending half the night practising with his newfound ability, Favian finally decided to absorb the energy from the beast core he''d plundered from the elephant. The core was rather large, about the size of a baby''s head, and it glowed in a brown light. Different beast cores all had varying effects on a user when absorbed, depending on what element the beast was most proficient in. A brown core signified that the beast wasn''t particularly good with magic, however it was very good at absorbing the arcana in the atmosphere to strengthen its body. This meant that as Favian absorbed the beast core, he could feel his vital stats increasing steadily. Absorbing the energy gave him a nauseous feeling, as it felt like he was eating food whilst already full. He could feel his muscles expand as he absorbed the energy, thus, he relented against the uncomfortable feeling and continued. After absorbing about a quarter of the core, he was unable to find any space in his body to let the energy flow into. Suddenly, an idea sprung into his head, and he summoned his shadow from its patrol. He handed the beast core to the shadow, which was able to grasp onto it firmly. It would only solidify when Favian wanted it to, which was why Dunkel had been able to put his hand into it as if it was invisible. In the same manner as he had done previously, the shadow absorbed the energy into its body. However, it had no physical body, so the only place where the energy could flow towards was its arcane core. The energy filled up the core quickly, sucking dry the beast core it held, and causing it to crumble into dust. ''Hmm, so regardless of what type of beast core I get, the shadow will be able to absorb the energy into our core. Interesting.'' Even better, he realised he could meditate simultaneously with his shadow, which would yield him a much faster speed in levelling up. He wanted to test out how this would work, but it was already dawn. ... The sun shone down through the woods, illuminating the camp. The trio was currently eating breakfast, Favian eating a healthy meal of fruits and muesli. Dunkel was eating some beef jerky, whilst Licht was eating a chicken leg along with an assortment of even more meat. ''I''m eating loads, but look at how much she''s eating,'' Favian thought. He couldn''t believe that Licht was having so much meat for breakfast. If he didn''t know that the world worked differently here than on Earth, he would''ve been surprised that she''d not died of a heart attack yet. "Dunkel, I''ve got a question," Licht asked. "Fire away Mademoiselle," he replied. Licht pointed at his bow and quiver before asking, "Why do you carry a bow and quiver when you just conjure them out of magic anyways during a fight? It''s been bothering me this whole time." Dunkel looked at his weaponry, a sentimental glint in his eyes. "Ah, well, my grandma gave me these before I left to study at the academy. I just keep them in case I ever run out of mana, and because I don''t have the heart to just throw them away. Even if they were useless, any present from her I''d keep close to me." "What type of person is she?" Licht asked, interested in this woman who Dunkel had a massive soft spot for. Sadness washed over Dunkel as he looked for the way to answer the question. Finally, after a minute of silence, he said, "Grandma was kind. She''d always tell me these stories about the outside world every night, and about magic and other things. My parents died when I was young, so I''d been raised by her ever since I could remember. Now that she''s gone too, I just hold onto the things she taught me even more." Dunkel clutched the bow even harder than before, as tears dripped down onto his hands. The crying didn''t last long, after which he wiped off his tears, and proceeded to ask a question himself. "Guys, don''t you think it''s weird that they want us to just survive for one month. I mean, there are loads of us who can survive for a month and come out unharmed. Something fishy is going on. I just can''t put my finger on it." 28 System? Favian started to ponder on the question asked by Dunkel. Logically speaking, Dunkel was right, there were numerous students who would be able to simply survive in whichever range they were sent to. Even, more than 80% of the students should be able to at least stay alive for a whole month, and those who weren''t able to kill off the beasts should still be fine hiding for the allotted time. He''d wondered why they were allowing everyone to bring in supplies such as fresh food and water when it was supposed to be a test. Surviving for a month became drastically easier by not needing to hunt or forage for water and meat. "Yea, I found it weird that Professor Mildred talked about the ''first month'' when she explained how we signal for help. I''d think that the test isn''t survival at all," Licht said as she rubbed her chin in thought. "Maybe the test is to actually hunt the magical beasts in our area? I mean, that would make sense. Or maybe the test is to see which students progress the furthest in this month? I don''t know, but I think that just sitting idly and doing nothing will be a waste of our time anyways," Favian said. With that, their conversation ended, and the party decided to go hunting for different magical beasts. Like this, they spent the next ten days. Hunting, meditating and more hunting was what their time consisted of. Favian could now be said to have completely mastered the use of his shadows, and had even found out that by casting a spell at the same time as his shadow, they could increase the strength of it multiplicative. Sadly, his only usable spells currently were Time-Stop and Net of Shadows, thus, they didn''t display too flashy of an effect. His Net of Shadows, however, was able to subdue creatures with raw strength equivalent to that of a Level 1 Mage. Of course, he couldn''t subdue a Level 1 Mage with ease as they would have various protections, and the effects wouldn''t last as long as they did on a mindless beast. Spirit beasts on this continent had much stronger raw power than the sentient beings (Humans, Elves etc.) and only gained sentience once they reached a particularly high cultivation level. This would take hundreds of years, which was the downside that they innately had. They were much stronger starting off than humans or elves, but they took a lot longer to progress through the different ranks. Their ranks were the same as that of mages, assassins or warriors, which all spanned from level 1 to 9. An interesting thing with these beasts, however, was that they would automatically learn their skills upon reaching a certain threshold. Thus, they needn''t agonize themselves over hours spent perfecting a spell or skill. The party had yet to come into contact with a beast that was out of their level. Except for the mammoth that they''d run away from previously, everything else was smooth sailing. Favian would scout out for the party, which resulted in this comfortable setting for the trio. His shadow couldn''t be attacked physically, and spiritual attacks were necessary. This meant that even fire or wind magic was useless, and only attacks related to dark or light magic could affect it. Favian absorbed as many beast cores as possible, which was sped up by his shadow absorbing some as well. He''d been able to find various beast cores with a light magic attribute in the desert, and only a few that contained a dark energy attribute. These were precious to him, as his shadow magic consisted of the two magic''s, and meant that his rate of improvement was significantly increasing. ''Huh, what is this slimy wall I''ve hit on?'' Favian asked himself as he was sat meditating in his tent. It was currently nighttime, and the moon seemed absent to the area. The whole forest was covered in darkness, and no light illuminated the area. The wall Favian hit onto felt sticky, and each time he poured energy into it, it seemed to open up a gap, before closing again when his energy ran out. His heart was beating fast as he realised that breaking this barrier should make him a Level 1 Mage. He tried for hours to break this barrier, however, it seemed that his mana pool was insufficient. ''If you need more mana, then what about this?'' Favian thought. This was the first time that he''d recalled his shadow into his body, along with his second arcane core, as the protection and utility it provided seemed too good to just recall. The feeling of himself being whole again washed over Favian, and a strange surge of energy awakened within him. The second arcane core released large tendrils of black energy into his body, before attacking the sticky wall. ''What is this?'' Favian questioned, but didn''t waste any time in putting his first arcane core into the fray. Mimicking the actions of the second core, Favian released purple tendrils of energy at the barrier. Favian had thought that the tendrils of energy would forcibly break through the barrier, but instead, it sapped away the power from the barrier, forcing it to become more solid, like glass. ''NOW!'' Favian shouted in his mind. Favian pushed all of his body''s energy, including all of his mana, to the extreme in an attempt to break the barrier. He conjured two daggers in his hands, one black and one purple, and smashed them against the glass wall. With a crash, the wall shattered in half, and Favian fell through it with the amount of force his body put into thrusting himself at it. A wave of world energy surged into Favian, nourishing his body and mind, and strengthening his arcane cores. His eyes now became a deep purple, and his hair started to give off a lustre of purple. His cores now felt not only stronger, but like they were pumping out much more arcana into his body to turn into mana. [DING! Host upgraded to Level 1 Mage. Congratulations! Favian Umbra (Level 1 Shadow Mage) Stats: Str:3.0, Con:3.5, Agility:4.2, Intelligence:10, Arcana: 10, Mana pool 10,000. Host has unlocked new passive ability: Perception Level 1 - Host ability to view world clearly without use of sight. This passively allows host to interact with surroundings using only arcana. Host required to choose a subclass, would host like to see the list of subclasses now?] Elon loyally spoke. Favian could not have been more ecstatic at the sound of the system he thought he''d completely lost. His emotions were running high, however, he still had questions to ask. ''System, what happened to you? Why did you only appear now?'' [DING! System was forced to undergo evolution by the massive energy force created by the lightning current host received whilst battling at the Colosseum. System would have finished evolution after 6 months, but the excess energy host received by levelling up right now boosted this process to completion.] Favian was shocked at this situation. It was almost comical; his precious game system was forced into a premature evolution? He didn''t know whether to laugh or cry at his luck. ''Why did you have to wipe away my memories on all of the books you scanned? Couldn''t you just upgrade with the knowledge still intact?'' he asked. [DING! To answer host''s question, the upgrade and evolution of the system requires 100% of the system''s attention, therefore all facilities are halted until completion.] Elon replied mechanically. ''So the system isn''t completely overpowered then I guess. I have at least a set period of vulnerability everytime the system upgrades, so I need be a lot less reliant on it, in case another event such as this happens again.'' [DING! Would host like to see contents of the system''s evolution?] ''Yes.'' [DING! Object scanning 2 acquired - Host can now scan the power levels of individuals above host''s strength rating, up to a certain limit. The stronger an opponent is, the more unknown values will be projected. Objects can be scanned from further away, not requiring host''s touch to perform analysis. Arcana knowledge 2 acquired - Host can now absorb intermediate arcane particles from his surroundings. Arcane core assembly acquired - Host is limited to the purchase of maximum 1 additional arcane core. Experience required 100,000. Analysing host memories... Performing synthesis... Experience gained... Host experience 20,000. Host can purchase item shop now. Would host like information on it?] ''Hold on, so I can absorb intermediate arcane particles now? My cultivation speed should skyrocket now that I can directly absorb shadow energy. And another arcane core would probably be amazing, but I''m far from having enough experience to buy it. I guess I''ll do this,'' Favian thought. Favian decided to purchase the item shop, which Elon explained would allow him to purchase weapons, armour, potions and other miscellaneous items via the usage of combat tokens. Combat tokens could only be received by killing beasts, and those significantly weaker than him wouldn''t net him many tokens. Also, he had to contribute more than 50% of the damage dealt to a beast in order to get these tokens. 8 Book 2 - Chapter 1 Contains Spoilers "No, I don''t know what yo-PUH," blood dripped from Dunkel''s lips as he was swiftly interrupted by a punch to the stomach. His hair had now grown longer and the usual sparkle found in his eyes was all but gone. His face was beaten down and he struggled to look at his assailant with his two black eyes which were now swollen to the size of apples. "Rejoice, for this is only the beginning of your torture! You will tell me exactly what I want to know, or else¡­" the man pointed at a strange apparatus which looked like a coffin, but inside it were countless metal spikes, waiting to pierce into warm flesh. "I will make sure to take good care of you. Don''t worry, you won''t be dying anytime soon," he manically laughed as he said this. Dunkel glared at his torturer, doing his best not to crack under the constant pain and torture he was being put through. ''The academy must be coming for me any moment,'' he thought. This thought kept his resolve from being broken in the 2 days since he''d been kidnapped by Raziel. He''d been brought to the Followers of Eris'' base, which was hidden deep in a forest, and enchanted to make sure that nobody knew of its location. What Dunkel didn''t know, was that help wouldn''t and could not come. He was truly stuck behind enemy lines, with a 0% chance of being saved. Over the next few weeks, Dunkel was put through what can only be described as hell on hell. He was tortured in so many different ways that he''d lost count. He would always get to the brink of what he thought was his death, but then miraculously he''d be healed back to full vitality. He wasn''t even allowed to pass out under the pain, as there were special concoctions that he was fed to keep him awake at all times. He hadn''t slept in days, because the moment he would fall asleep, another torture session would commence. The only time he was free from torture was when he forced himself to stay awake, but this never lasted long. Only 10 to 15 minutes later and he''d fall asleep, and the torture would commence again. His living conditions were similarly horrible. He was imprisoned behind rusted metal bars, and there was no such thing as a shower or toilet for him. He basically lived in his own blood, sweat, and excretion. Despite this, sleep would always take over. The torture chamber which he lived in was huge, but most of the space was taken up by all the forms of torture devices he was put through. By now, his hair had lost its luster, turning completely gray under the psychological stress he was put through. His eyes similarly lost that shine they had, and he was no longer that energetic, flamboyant youth. Dunkel wasn''t trying to survive anymore, he just wanted death to embrace him already. "A-Are you okay?" a childish female voice asked. Dunkel looked around, confused as hell. ''I''m hearing things again aren''t I,'' he thought. He decided to completely ignore the existence of the voice, instead trying his best to keep his eyes wide open. His hair was currently red, full of blood, as he''d just recently been put through another torture device. "You look hurt, do you need any help?" the voice asked again. "Who, where are you?" Dunkel spun his head towards the voice, but couldn''t make out any person. He could sense that there was something nearby, but couldn''t pinpoint the exact location. "Close your eyes, I''m right here!" she replied. Dunkel thought hard for a moment. He absolutely didn''t want to close his eyes. He knew that he''d fall asleep the moment he forcefully closed them. But, the voice soothed him, and gave off a calming aura, as if it wanted to help him. Slowly, he closed his eyes, not caring if he was just hallucinating. Even if he fell asleep now, he didn''t care. He''d been tortured enough to be able to resist some of the pain. After closing his eyes, Dunkel was left utterly surprised. He was somehow transported to a grassy field, filled with berries and fruits, with bees buzzing away cheerfully. The sun rays warmed him, with this being the first time he''d seen the sun and sky in what felt like centuries. A calming wind brushed against his face, a feeling he never thought he''d be able to welcome again. "That''s better. I''ll take care of you," the childish voice said. Dunkel could now make out who this mysterious girl was that kept talking to him. Flying above him was a small fairy, her tiny wings flapping quickly to keep her in the air. The fairy was only the size of a fist, and was the cutest thing Dunkel believed he''d ever seen in his life. "I''m Sire, nice to meet you! Let''s be friends," she said. Her voice was high-pitched, but soothing to the ear. It was almost angelic in the way that she sounded like she was singing a lullaby whenever she talked. Dunkel was astonished at Sire''s appearance. She came to him at the time when he needed somebody the most, after he''d already convinced himself that help wasn''t going to come. Not from the Dusk Academy, not from Favian or Licht, and not even from his mother the Drow Queen. The despair that had been weighing him down was slowly being eased by this child-like creature. "Who are you?" Dunkel said. He was suspicious about the exact perfect timing that the fairy had used to contact him. Why now? Why couldn''t she have helped him earlier? These thoughts were running through his mind, pessimism taking hold of him. ''I should trust her, and everything about her is telling me to trust her. But that''s exactly why I cant trust her, this is all a bit too convenient,'' he thought. The fairy looked at Favian with interest. Her curiosity had now been peaked. A devilish grin appeared on her face, but it went away so quickly that Dunkel wasn''t able to notice it. "I''m here to save you, that''s all you need to know for now. I just happened to stumble onto you because of the dense aura of pain and agony you were emitting. Let''s just say that I''ve been brought here to save you from the torture you had been put through," Sire replied. She twirled her blond hair as she said this. "Just follow me, I''ll get you to somewhere safe." Dunkel wasn''t sure whether to follower her. His only other option was to stay put, which would mean he''d be sent back to his dungeon, the torture chamber. The thought of that immediately made him follow this stranger, who was flying off at a fast pace despite her tiny size. Dunkel was brought along the field, which extended for a couple kilometers. He decided to pick up various fruits and berries along the way to quench his hunger; Dunkel hadn''t been given food ever since his torture began, and nearly died of starvation multiple times. But every time he almost died, he would be healed up again, but the hunger would always be there. After following Sire for 10 minutes, he reached a small cottage. The cottage was in the middle of nowhere, with shrubbery having grown completely around it, and vines slithering across the building. The sun was slowly starting to set at this point, and it would take less than an hour for darkness to take over the area. "Come in, this little abode of mine should keep us safe for the night," Sire said. She opened the door with the wave of her hand, the door knob being the same size as her whole body. A gust of wind turned the door knob, and what greeted Dunkel from the inside was a warm living room, heated by a fireplace. There was no chimney to be seen anywhere, and the smoke from the fireplace dissipated into thin air once it escaped to the ceiling. A platter of food was placed in front of Dunkel, an assortment of different meats and cheeses, and he ravaged it like the wild beast he was. "Why are you helping me?" Dunkel asked, his mouth stuffed to the brim with food. His hands were by now greasy, which he wiped off on his tattered shirt without care. He no longer cared about his fate. If he were to die right now, he wouldn''t care. If this fairy was to back stab him, he also wouldn''t care. Right now, he was fully psychologically worn down. "You''ll find out soon. All I ask is that you help me out in return. Do we have a deal?" Sire asked, smiling at him with her chubby cheeks. Dunkel didn''t care about the outcome, so he simply replied, "Sure." 4 Book 2 - Chapter 1 Contains Spoilers "No, I don''t know what you-PUH," blood dripped from Dunkel''s lips as he was swiftly interrupted by a punch to the stomach. His hair was unkempt and the usual sparkle found in his eyes was all but gone. His face was beaten down and he struggled to look at his assailant with his two black eyes which were now swollen to the size of apples. "Rejoice, for this is only the beginning of your torture! You will tell me exactly what I want to know, or else¡­" the man pointed at a strange apparatus which looked like a coffin, but inside it were countless metal spikes, waiting to pierce into warm flesh. "I will make sure to take good care of you. Don''t worry, you won''t be dying anytime soon," he manically laughed as he said this. Dunkel glared at his torturer, doing his best not to crack under the constant pain and torture he was being put through. ''The academy must be coming for me any moment,'' he thought. This thought kept his resolve from being broken in the 2 days since he''d been kidnapped by Raziel. He''d been brought to the Followers of Eris'' base, which was hidden deep in a forest, and enchanted to make sure that nobody knew of its location. What Dunkel didn''t know, was that help wouldn''t and could not come. He was truly stuck behind enemy lines, with a 0% chance of being saved. Over the next few weeks, Dunkel was put through what can only be described as hell on hell. He was tortured in so many different ways that he''d lost count. He would always get to the brink of what he thought was his death, but then miraculously be healed back up to full vitality. He wasn''t even allowed to pass out under the constant pain, as there were special concoctions that he was fed to keep him awake at all times. He hadn''t slept properly in days. The moment he fell asleep, his sadistic captors would employ another torture session for him. The only time he was free from his agony was when he forced himself to stay awake, but this never lasted long. Only 10 to 15 minutes later and he''d fall asleep; the torture would commence again. His living conditions were similarly horrible. He was imprisoned behind rusted metal bars, and there was no such thing as a shower or toilet for him. He basically lived in his own blood, sweat, and excretion. Despite this, sleep would always take over. The torture chamber which he lived in was huge, but most of the space was taken up by all the different devices that were used to put him through an endless torment. By now, his hair had lost its luster, having been turned into a blood-stained crimson red by the blood splatters from his own body. His eyes had similarly lost their usual sparkle, and he was no longer that energetic, flamboyant youth who had all the energy in the world. Dunkel wasn''t trying to survive anymore, he just wanted death to embrace him already, to tell him that it''s all finally over. "A-Are you okay?" a childish female voice asked. Dunkel looked around slowly, confused as hell. ''I''m hearing things again aren''t I,'' he thought. He decided to completely ignore the existence of the voice, instead trying his best to keep his eyes wide open. His hair was currently full of blood fresh blood, as he''d just recently been put through another sickening torture device. His fingernails were each peeled off, and then his fingers chopped, after which everything was healed back to normal, and repeated. "You look hurt, do you need any help?" the voice asked softly. "Who is it? Where are you?" Dunkel spun his head towards the voice, but couldn''t make out any person. He could sense that there was something nearby, but couldn''t pinpoint the exact location. ''My mind is playing tricks on me!'' "Close your eyes, I''m right here!" she replied. Dunkel thought hard for a moment. He absolutely didn''t want to close his eyes. He knew that he''d fall asleep the moment he forcefully closed them. But, the voice soothed him, and gave off a calming aura, as if it wanted to help him. Slowly, he closed his eyes, not caring if he was just hallucinating. Even if he fell asleep now, he didn''t care. He''d been tortured enough to be able to resist some of the pain. After closing his eyes, Dunkel was left utterly surprised. He was somehow transported to a grassy field, filled with berries and fruits. Bees buzzed away cheerfully, scooping up the sweet nectar of their labor before flying away. The sun rays warmed him, with this being the first time he''d seen the sun and sky in what felt like centuries. A calming wind brushed against his face, a feeling he never thought he''d be able to welcome again. "That''s better. I''ll take care of you," the childish voice said. Dunkel could now make out who this mysterious girl was that kept talking to him. Flying above him was a small fairy, her tiny wings flapping quickly to keep her in the air. The fairy was only the size of a fist, and was the cutest thing Dunkel believed he''d ever seen in his life. "I''m Sire, nice to meet you! Let''s be friends," she said. Her voice was high-pitched, but soothing to the ear. It was almost angelic in the way that she sounded like she was singing a lullaby whenever she spoke. Dunkel was astonished at Sire''s appearance. She came to him at the time when he needed somebody the most, after he''d already convinced himself that help wasn''t going to come. Not from the Dusk Academy, not from Favian or Licht, and not even from his mother the Drow Queen. The despair that had been weighing him down was slowly being eased by this child-like creature. "Who are you?" Dunkel said. He was suspicious about the exact perfect timing that the fairy had used to contact him. Why now? Why couldn''t she have helped him earlier? These thoughts were running through his mind, pessimism taking hold of him. ''I should trust her, and everything about her is telling me to trust her. But that''s exactly why I can''t trust her, this is all a bit too convenient,'' he thought. The fairy looked at Dunkel with interest. Her curiosity had now been peaked. A devilish grin appeared on her face, but it went away so quickly that Dunkel wasn''t able to notice it. "I''m here to save you, that''s all you need to know for now. I just happened to stumble onto you because of the dense aura of pain and agony you were emitting. Let''s just say that I''ve been brought here to save you from the what you''ve been put through," Sire replied. She twirled her blond hair as she said this. "Just follow me, I''ll get you to somewhere safe." Dunkel wasn''t sure whether to follow her. His only other option was to stay put, which would mean he''d be sent back to his dungeon, the torture chamber. The thought of that immediately made him follow this stranger, who was flying off at a fast pace despite her tiny size. Dunkel was brought along the field, which extended for a couple of kilometers. He decided to pick up various fruits and berries along the way to quench his hunger; Dunkel hadn''t been given food ever since his torture began, and nearly died of starvation multiple times. But every time he almost died, he would be healed up again, but the hunger would always be there. After following Sire for 10 difficult minutes, he reached a small cottage, right before he felt his exhaustion would kill him for good. The cottage was in the middle of nowhere, with shrubbery having grown completely around it, and vines slithering across the building. The sun was slowly starting to set at this point, and it would take less than an hour for darkness to take over the area. "Come in, this little abode of mine should keep us safe for the night," Sire said. She opened the door with a wave of her hand, the doorknob being the same size as her whole body. A gust of wind turned the doorknob, and what greeted Dunkel from the inside was a warm living room, heated by a fireplace. There was no chimney to be seen anywhere, and the smoke from the fireplace dissipated into thin air once it escaped to the ceiling. A platter of food was placed in front of Dunkel, an assortment of different meats and cheeses, and he ravaged it like the wild beast he was, not caring about etiquette at all. "Why are you helping me?" Dunkel asked, his mouth stuffed to the brim with food. His hands were now greasy, which he wiped off on his tattered shirt without care. He no longer cared about his fate. If he were to die right now, he wouldn''t care. If this fairy was to backstab him, he also wouldn''t care. Right now, he was completely psychologically worn down. Whatever was in store for him next, he''d accept it with open arms. "You''ll find out soon. All I ask is that you help me out in return. Do we have a deal?" Sire asked, smiling at him with her chubby cheeks. Dunkel didn''t care about the outcome, so he simply replied, "Sure." 5 Book 2 - A Fragmen "Help me Favian, help me," a ghostly voice called out. A sword was plunged through its stomach, and blood gushed from the wound like a waterfall. Worms and ants crawled out of the wound, and a black tar-like substance oozed from their bodies. Favian couldn''t make out the face of this person, as it was shrouded in darkness, but he could make out that it had blueish-black skin, and long pointed ears. "Why didn''t you save me Favian? It''s all your fault. I''d still be alive if you didn''t force us into the Pharaoh''s Tomb," it said. Its voice was now even less human-like, and became extremely rough, as if it was parched for water. The corpse slowly stood up, its bones creaking as it walked towards Favian, who was forcefully tied to a chair. "What? No! I didn''t mean for any of this to happen! You have to believe me," Favian shouted. He tried to release himself from his bindings, but the leather belts that strapped him to the chair were simply too strong, and his body was sapped of all energy, leaving him thin and shriveled the same way he''d been before becoming a mage. "It''s all your fault. It''s all your fault. It''s all your fault," the ghost kept saying. At first Favian could barely hear its chant, but it ramped up slowly into a haunting scream. The corpse was now only inches away from Favian''s face, its pungent blood dripping onto his forehead. The stench of rotting flesh mixed with vinegar invaded his nostrils, making him almost puke. "No. No. Don''t do it!" Favian screamed. Before he could react, the corpse bit into his ear, chewing it off with ease. Blood splattered everywhere, and Favian howled in pain. The corpse didn''t stop there, slowly it consumed him, bit by bit. All of his flesh was ripped away from him, until only a bloody pool was left by the chair. Blood, flesh and bones were eaten by the corpse, and a maniacal laugh left its lips. ¡­ *GASP* Favian jumped up from his slumber, sweat dripping profusely from his forehead. He was panting, trying to inhale as much air as he could. The dream he''d just had sent chills down his spine when he tried to relive it. It all felt so real, every chunk that was taken from his flesh he felt. The immense pain from having his organs ripped out of his body and devoured. He was helpless to do anything in his dream, and wasn''t sure what was reality anymore. "It''s okay. It''s all good Favian, let''s just take things one step at a time," he said. Favian got up from his bed and proceeded to move to his bathroom. He turned on his shower and blasted its heat to the maximum level. Only a hot steamy shower could help relieve his stress right now. ''Why did that feel so real? That has to be the weirdest dream I''ve ever had. System, is there any input you can give me on that?'' Favian was deep in thought as he was showering, letting the boiling hot water wash away his pain and fears from earlier. His body was easily able to withstand such temperatures, due to his high constitution stat. [DING! Analysis of the host''s dream leads me to conclude that this was a fragment of time. Whether this was from the past or future is unknown] Elon replied faithfully. ''Huh? What does that even mean?'' he asked himself. Favian got himself ready, reading a weathered tome that sat on his desk. It had already been months since the ''Purging'' occurred at the Kalari Desert, and the tragic loss of his best friend. Favian had been bombarded with nightmares every time he closed his eyes, and sleep had become scarce for him. Instead, he put all of his energy into meditation, since his thoughts would delve into nothingness whenever he did this. This was the only time he was at peace. Whether he was asleep or awake, he was tormented by guilt, the guilt that he was responsible for Dunkel''s death. He reasoned that there was almost no way that Dunkel would be alive, and even if he was, there was nothing he could currently do about it, so he prepared his mind for the worst outcome. The library was where he''d spend all of his time when he didn''t meditate or go to lessons, looking for answers on the prophecy told to him by Khepri. It left him confused, what was this blood moon? Why was he given the legendary beast egg? He had so many questions, and finding any semblance of an answer only led to even more questions. By now, the library clerk, Essi, knew Favian''s patterns really well. He would usually enter the library after midnight, when there were almost no students there, and would leave once the sun rose. His time was spent in the aisles which focused on the world geography and ancient civilizations. His progress had been pretty minimal, with him only gaining one true nugget of information. ''A great cataclysm destroyed the link between the continent of Ortu Solis and the ''Dark Continent'', or at least that''s what is says here,'' Favian thought as he scrolled through a book he''d borrowed from the library. This book had some very useful information in letting him figure out what was beyond Ortu Solis. Ortu Solis wasn''t a planet like Earth, instead, it was its own plane in existence. If you were to fly all the way up to the sky, you''d be restricted from leaving the plane due to some mysterious magic. In order to leave Ortu Solis, some form of teleportation hub was used, but this knowledge wasn''t made available to the vast majority of people on the continent. The only reason Favian was able to find this was due because of headmaster Anansi, who allowed him to browse through some restricted areas of the library after his constant pestering and nagging. Favian still was unsure why Anansi knew his full name, which was from Earth, but he was too scared to ask. He''d rather leave the question unanswered for now considering that it most likely would do him no good. ''Okay, time to go to the library,'' he thought. Favian proceeded to walk to his second home, the library, or as he dubbed it, the room of knowledge. Hundreds of thousands of books were piled high on the shelves, with there also being a room specifically for scrolls, which, unlike books and tomes, would have their knowledge imprinted directly into the user. Favian had come to the library everyday since his return from the Kalari Desert, and scanned a single book. He didn''t want to look too suspicious to Essi by taking multiple books on each trip, or else questions would start being asked, and he didn''t want to give any way for somebody to find out about his ability to immediately commit a book''s knowledge to heart because of his World of Exile system. Favian had also scanned books about intermediate and advanced magic particles, hoping to find an answer to what his most compatible magic particle was. He knew that shadow was only his second most compatible, and he''d still been unable to figure out what was his best. Favian browsed through the catalog of books on advanced magic particles, having already found all the available information on intermediate particles previously. ''Huh, what''s this?'' Favian thought. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed something different in the restricted area. He was granted slight access to this area by Anansi, but had been unable to read through many of the books there. The majority were still off limits for him. However, right now he saw something that wasn''t on the shelf before. It was a purple scroll, with a weird symbol on it that looked like a vortex. "Essi, are there ever scrolls in the restricted parts of the library?" Favian shouted, making sure his voice reached down towards Essi who was on the ground floor of the library, whilst Favian was currently on the 4th floor. The dwarf clerk looked up towards Favian''s direction and pushed his glasses further up on his nose. "None that I''ve heard of. Why are you asking that out of the blue anyways?" "No reason Essi," Favian replied. Quickly he went towards the purple scroll. The scroll was made of a type of paper Favian had never seen before, feeling closer to sandpaper than it did anything else. A shimmering light was given off by the scroll, engulfing Favian''s vision in a deep purple. ''Weird, why do I feel a connection to this?'' he asked himself. The aura given off by the scroll felt strangely similar to his own, or at least he believed this to be the case. Favian examined the scroll closely, trying to ascertain that it would do him no harm. Elon gave him ''thumbs up'' to using the scroll, since it couldn''t detect any hidden spells or curses on the scroll. The longer Favian stared at the vortex symbol on the scroll, the more he was being disoriented. ''Whoa, let''s not do that,'' he thought. Just as he was about to look away from the scroll''s symbol, he was pulled into it completely. His body disappeared from the library, having been sucked in by a chaotic swirl of purple energy undulations. 6 Chapter 3 "Whoa what the hell!" Favian screamed as his body materialized into the scroll. He''d been pulled into it with such a strong force that he''d had no time to put up any defenses. ''Ahh if I''d kept my shadow materialized at the academy, maybe¡­'' he thought. His line of logic was that he probably could have teleported to his shadow before being sucked into the scroll, but at the same time having his shadow materialized at the academy didn''t sit too well with him. What if somebody studied this unique spell of his? Favian looked at his surroundings, trying to figure out where he was right now. He was able to make out that he was stood by a beach. He could hear the waves crashing against the sand, and seawater entered his nostrils. It was pitch black outside, so it was only with extreme difficulty that Favian was able to make out any of his surroundings. The only source of light seemed to come from the sky. ''Weird. What is that?'' Favian thought as he looked at the sky. There were none of the numerous dots he''d expected to see when he looked up, which showcased the light from distant stars. Not even a single one. The only thing visible was a purple vortex, similar to the symbol that was on the cover of the scroll. The vortex was huge. When compared to the moon, Favian believed it to be almost 100 times bigger. The moment Favian focused his eyes on the vortex, the surrounding area brightened up in a purple color. It seemed that the darkness was lifted once he focused on the object in the sky. Suddenly, Favian''s body was moved off the ground, and sent hurtling into the sky. He was being sucked into the vortex at a rapid speed, the wind surging against his face and almost piercing his skin. "AHHHH!" Favian screamed, but his voice was unable to pierce through the atmosphere. By now he was in space, and was unable to take even a single breath. He would be able to hold his breath for a substantial amount of time, but this didn''t bode well for him. Even if he was able to survive for hours without taking a breath, he would definitely meet his end at the vortex, or so he thought. Everything next happened in a blur. Favian opened his eyes, only to see that he was back at the library. He was standing at the exact position he''d been before being pulled into the vortex, the only difference was that the scroll was gone. ''What the hell? System, what happened?'' he asked. [DING!Error! Unknown energy has scrambled the host''s memories] "What?" Favian shouted in alarm. He could still remember being sucked into the scroll, but it seemed that other stuff happened whilst he was there that he couldn''t remember. An artifact that could alter his memories, when he even had his game system, must be immensely powerful. ''Damn it, if only I could''ve gotten my hands on it.'' Favian was under the belief that he''d completely lost the scroll. "Favian! Why are you still at the library? You promised to go to the cafe with me!" a female voice suddenly erupted from behind him. "Huh? Ahh shit, sorry Licht, I completely forgot about it," Favian said, pleading for her to take it easy on him. Usually he would go to the library in the evening, but today was a special day. Today was the last day of term at the Dusk Academy, so Favian had gone to the library early in the morning instead. His previous preoccupations had left him forgetting his lunch date with Licht. "That''s fine, I just want us to get there before it gets too busy," she replied, smiling at him warmly. Licht wore a simple mage''s robes, and had adorned her hair with a pink flower. "How do you like it?" she asked, pointing at the flower in her hair. Favian wasn''t sure how to respond. Frankly, he didn''t care about accessories too much. "Yea looks good," he said. With that, the two walked over to Cafe Elegantia. This was Favian''s favorite spot to grab food from. The two quickly ordered large amounts of confectionery and desserts, which would usually have surprised anyone, but the two had already been to this place frequently enough for the staff to know their gluttonous tendencies. Licht currently had buried herself in a pool of molten chocolate cake, devouring it as if it was the last time she''d ever have food again. "So, today is the final day of our first year here at the academy. I can''t believe it went by so quickly," she said. The nostalgia of his first year brought back lots of different memories. Pain, shame, anger, sadness. These were all things he''d experienced a multitude of times. "I wonder what Dunkel would''ve said if he was here," Favian said. Suddenly Licht stopped eating, something that was rare for her. If she had food, she didn''t care what it was but she''d finish eating it. A sad glint could be seen in her eyes, and she replied, "Probably some stupid rumor about how a demon will eat us on the last day of term." "Haha, yea, you''re probably right." Favian''s face was filled with sadness when he thought back on his memories of Dunkel, an emotion Licht was also feeling after she''d said her part. "So Favian¡­ What have you found out so far?" she asked. Favian rubbed his temple in a circular motion, before saying, "Nothing much. Honestly, the information on places outside of Ortu Solis is so limited. I even asked the headmaster but he was really vague and didn''t really answer my questions. All I do know is that apparently there''s some sort of method to teleport from here to the southern lands, but again, the explanations aren''t good at all. I have found that the continent to the south is called Luna, however. What about you? What have you gotten so far?" "Hmm, that sounds pretty bad for us. I mean you''ve spent months looking for answers and only found this much," she said, only realizing how harsh it sounded after the words left her lips. "Ahh that''s not what I meant, you''ve worked really hard but we are just being blocked off from the good information. And to answer your question, I haven''t gotten much information either. I kept pestering my dad about the lands to the south, but his mouth has been shut tightly on that subject, it''s like he''s trying to hide something." The sun was currently at its apex, signaling that it was noon time. It was only now that the pair remembered they had to go to the assembly hall for their end of year graduation. "Shit!" they both shouted, after which Favian took a big chunk out of his last pancake and sprinted away. It only took a couple of minutes for the two to arrive at the assembly hall, where they promptly found themselves seats. Only moments after they arrived, the assembly began. "Good Afternoon my hardworking students! I''d like to congratulate all of you for reaching the end of this academic year. I know that it has not been easy, and many have been expelled along the way for not meeting our strict requirements. However, those of you left are the creme de la creme. We are all extremely proud of you for making the leap from an initiate to a proper Level 1 Magician," headmaster Anansi said. He wore a striking black suit, that fit onto his body perfectly. Applause filled the room after he said this, and some cheers were even heard from some of the more rowdy students. Stood by all the other professors, Aria could be seen clapping and cheering as well as she looked on at Favian. Anansi cleared his throat, after which he continued with his speech. "Now now, settle down everyone. I have some very important news for you today. Firstly, I want you all to know that I''m terribly sorry for this, but this has been the tradition for countless centuries already. My big announcement is that a select number of you will be taking part in the annual Inter-Academy Championship which will begin in a month. We will be choosing the five brightest students from only the first-year cohort to accompany us, and you''ll have to battle it out with each other at the Colosseum to see who can make it. If bringing glory and honor to our academy isn''t enough of an incentive for you all, then let me announce that the first ranked student will receive 500 contribution points." The assembly hall erupted in outrage. Favian was unsure whether the students were being extremely loud right now in joy or anger. Personally, he didn''t really care either way. 500 contribution points was a lot, but it seemed that he''d be getting more than that once his second year at the academy began, or at least Aria had told him this. There were definitely perks to being the direct student of a professor at the academy, and talent really did influence the chances a person could get in life. If Favian didn''t have his game system and wasn''t talented in magic in the first place, then he sure as hell would not have even close of the growth spurt that he had. Heaps of beast cores and medicinal herbs were bought by him through the contribution points he''d gathered over his first year at the academy, and helped to move him immensely in his cultivation. Right now, he was very close to breaking through to the inner Level 1 Magician. Without the help of these resources, it would have taken a lot longer to achieve this rate of cultivation. "What do you think about this Licht?" he asked. "I''m not too sure, but it sounds like a good deal right? Do you even know the amount of rare food I can buy with 500 contribution points? I could even get some griffin wings or unicorn thighs by the boatload with so many points," Licht replied. Her face flared up with energy as she thought about the different types of food she could buy if she was ranked as the best student. "Whoa slow down there. Bruh, is that slobber I see on your lips?" Favian asked, pointing to the side of her mouth where she had clearly just been salivating. Licht started to blush the moment Favian pointed it out, instead deciding to divert his attention away from her. "Shut up! Anyway, if the two of us end up having to fight each other, you better not go easy on me!" she exclaimed. "You know I wouldn''t dare to do that, you''ll find some way to annoy me if I did," he replied, laughing at the seriousness in her voice. 7 Chapter 4 It was currently the day after headmaster Anansi had announced the Inter-Academy Championship. The Dusk Academy had been rather quiet in the past few months after the ''Purging'' had ended. A minority of students had been thrown out, having failed to survive in their allocated beast ranges for even a month. The rest of the students had been brought back from the beast ranges immediately after the one month was over. At first, the academy had wanted to test how long the groups would be able to survive and progress in the wilderness, with the best teams being rewarded handsomely. However, after the followers of Eris attacked Favian and his group, it was decided that the students wouldn''t be put in any more danger than they needed to be, for now. It would be a lot easier to protect them once they were at the academy, since there were various defense mechanisms built into it that even the most powerful organizations couldn''t break. "Are there any news about his whereabouts?" Anansi asked, speaking into a communications device that was hung around his neck. The device was charcoal in color, and was in the shape of a spider. "There''s nothing concrete that we''ve been able to find out yet, master. There is something peculiar, however. The barrier to the south is nearing its weakest state in more than ten thousand years. All of the other organizations on the continent are slowly coming to realize what danger this poses, and the manpower guarding the area is being bolstered. It''s still not enough, but we are getting there," a female voice replied. "Keep me posted as much as possible Kalifa," he replied with a sigh. He hadn''t found out what he wanted to, and the situation was slowly starting to stress him out. "We don''t have that much time left, do?" ¡­ Favian had just woken up, when he''d gotten a call from Aria through his communication device. She''d asked him to come visit her at her office, which he hadn''t done in quite a long time. He had postponed seeing her for a while now as he''d been too busy trying to find out where Dunkel was and how he could help him. He had made sure to only do what he deemed necessary, which was to increase his strength and find information on the southern continent. He would rarely meet up with Licht, however, this also worked as a means to swap information as the two were both working towards the same goal. His room had changed in its appearance in the past months. There were diagrams littered around the walls, stuck onto them with some adhesive. Favian had written his ideas and thoughts onto the, the visual nature of it helping him sort his ideas out. He could have used his game system to do this, but he felt the need to do all of this by hand. The diagrams depicted what the different areas of the southern continent Luna should look like, according to the pieces of information he''d been able to gather from the library. There were many conflicting pieces of evidence, but he was able to sort these out in the best way he possibly could. The map of the ''Dark Continent'' was much larger than that of Ortu Solis,and it could accommodate almost 3 times its land mass. Favian gave his diagrams a last look before leaving his room. He walked towards Aria''s office quickly, and saw the usual signpost that floated above the little cottage like a cloud; the name ''Aria Pencost''. Favian didn''t bother knocking on the door, since he''d figured out that Aria was able to sense whenever he was there. Since the door to her cottage had no doorknob, it took Favian a long time to figure out that it opened by transmitting some arcana into it, which would then act as the energy to push it open. ''These ingenious magicians,'' Favian had thought when he first realized this. "Ahh Favian, thanks for coming here so quickly. Come, have a seat," she said, her voice as sweet as ever. Aria''s snow-white skin looked as fair as ever, and her beauty was still at the pique of existence, at least in Favian''s opinion. By now, however, Favian noticed that she treated him like a child, as if he were her own son. All thoughts of her on a romantic level were therefore shoved out of his mind, and even if they weren''t, he''d need to at least become a more powerful magician to court her, which could take decades that he wasn''t willing to spend on an unrequited love. "Master, what do you need me for?" he asked, having taken a seat in front of her desk, tea having already been prepared for him. The jasmine fragrance that emanated from the beverage soothed his mind and spirit. "Well,I have something to tell you. I am almost certain that you will be representing us at the Inter-Academy Competition, and ask that you just do me a little favor," Aria said whilst twiddling her thumbs together. ''Weird, she''s never acted so shy before. Is this really Aria?'' Favian thought to himself. He was confused why she would act so suspiciously, especially when she wanted him to do her a favor. "Uh,I would love to agree but I need to hear what you want me to do first," he replied. Aria proceeded to sigh, and thought about how to formulate the words that she wanted to say. She furrowed her brows, after which she finally said, "So¡­ I have a daughter. I know this might come as a shock, but she is the same age as you, and studies at the Dawn Academy. I know, it''s a cliche, with me being a teacher at the Dusk Academy and her father being a teacher at the Dawn Academy. But, I haven''t talked to her in so long because of that bastard of a man!" She quickly calmed herself down, her drink having been spilled unintentionally in her rage. Aria knew how to keep her emotions in check for the majority of the time, and they would only flair up in very specific situations, but she''d be able to calm them rather quickly. "Sorry about that, where was I now? Yes, you see, I just want you to tell her that I love her, and that she has all the rights to hate me. Can you do that for me?" she asked, her eyes slowly watering up, however she didn''t let any tears fall onto her face. Favian was surprised at this revelation. He would have never thought that she had a child, especially when she didn''t even look older than 30 years of age. ''How old must she be if her daughter is already 17?'' Favian thought. "Yes of course I will, you just have to point her out for me and I''ll make sure she listens to the message," he said. He could see that his master was pained by her situation, so he''d try to help her however possible. "What''s her name master?" "Sharie, her name is Sharie," Aria said dejectedly. "Anyways, moving on. I would give you a speech or something because you''ll need to qualify for the competition, but I''m sure that you''ll be fine. Good luck my boy!" With that, Favian bid farewell to Aria and left to go to back his dorm on a rather uneventful stroll. Favian contemplated over what his master had just told him. He hadn''t realized that she was battling with such a mental scar, or at least it seemed that way to him. Favian was unsure what he would do if a child of his own hated him or was taken away from him. He''d witnessed many things at his medical school, such as scandals surrounding a parent not paying the child support needed to fund a kid''s medical expenses, so he knew how tough such situations were emotionally. ''Anyways, not much I can do about that. I wonder what type of person she is though? I bet she''s a loose cannon. It wouldn''t even surprise me because of Aria''s nature.'' Favian had now reached his bedroom and ordered some food for himself. The competition within the academy to select the top five students would be starting soon, so he wanted to consolidate his current strength. ''System, show me my stats!'' he ordered. [DING! Strength 5.0, Constitution 5.5, Agility 8.0, Intelligence 14, Arcana 14, Total Mana Pool 14000. Experience Total 21000] ''Hmm, seems that my stats haven''t really grown that much, except for my intelligence and arcana. I guess that''s the aftereffect of spending so much time at the library instead of doing martial arts. At least I was able to gather some achievements and get my experience to 21 thousand because of it,'' Favian thought. He had only used himself and his game system for training this whole time as he didn''t want anybody to find out about his shadow for now. However, it seemed that he''d have to release it soon, as he was rather defenseless without it. ''Hopefully I only have to use it at the Inter-Academy Competition against the other academies and not against my peers here,'' he thought. He then proceeded to meditate for the rest of the day and through the night until morning came, in order to gather up his strength. The sunlight showered his meditating face, urging him to get up and proceed with his day that would surely be packed to the brim with action. "Dunkel, wish me good luck." 8 Chapter 5 The sun was high up in the sky, its usually gentle flames now transformed into a blistering heat. The temperature in the area surrounding the Dusk Academy was abnormally high. Such heat was a rare occurrence since the academy had a barrier in place that regulated how hot or cold it could get inside. Today, however, this barrier was turned off completely. Headmaster Anansi was an interesting personality, and if you didn''t know him or his motives properly, then you''d think he was a psychopath or relished in the pain of others. He had ordered for the barrier to be put down for the day, as he wanted to push his students to the limits in their battles today. Not only would it make sure that every student would be able to learn something from today because of the different weather condition than usual, but it would also mean that only the best of the best would advance to represent the Dusk Academy at the Inter-Academy Competition. Currently, all of the first year students were seated by a massive field. The field was roughly the size of six football fields, and had roughly 30 areas separated by a magical barrier. Each of these areas was where the students would be fighting each other, meaning that 30 battles could be held at any one moment. Even though each battle was one on one, the students didn''t need to wait too long for their turn. It would only take a maximum of 5 minutes for any battle to finish. With roughly 500 first-year students still at the academy, this meant that the day would run smoothly. "It''s my turn to go Favian, I''ll see you at the other side," Licht said. Her name had just been called to go into battle. Her opponent was a no-namer at the academy, which meant that he wasn''t powerful enough to pose a threat to Licht. "Good luck!" Favian replied as she strutted away, her heavy plate armor clinging together. ''I pity the person who has to go up against her,'' he thought. ''System, scan for the strongest students currently in my vicinity.'' [DING! Initializing request¡­ Scanning complete. Two extra high quality individuals found and one excellent quality individual found. Licht has been barred from this request as per the user''s instructions. Individual 1 - Extra high quality. Strength 9, Constitution 8, Agility 9, Intelligence 9 Individual 2 - Extra high quality. Strength 6, Constitution 6, Agility 10, Intelligence 8 Individual 3 - Excellent quality. Strength 5, Constitution 5, Agility 5, Intelligence 15] Favian had been intently spectating the battles when Elon finally computed the raw data into empirical statistics. The contents of this notification left Favian gob-smacked. ''What? Since when have there been such powerful people in my year group,'' he thought in confusion. It took Favian a while to realize that he''d missed these people as he didn''t spend any time with a person other than Licht, and even then the amount of time he''d spent with her since Dunkel''s kidnapping was minimal. These three individuals were all Level 1 Mages, and therefore must have had a huge increase in their stats after they''d reached that level, he concluded. ''I mean the same thing happened to me when I advanced. There''s no need to be so shocked Favian. But seriously 15 intelligence? That''s just insane,'' Favian wondered what these three individuals looked like, especially the person with 15 intelligence. This was even higher than Favian''s own, and he was unsure if he''d be able to win against this person in a match of wits. Favian spent the next 30 minutes waiting for his match to begin. Licht had already come back from hers, not even breaking a sweat whilst pummeling her opponent to the ground. Her match lasted for less than 2 minutes, and could probably have been quicker had her opponent not been very good at running away. A thing that Favian was able to notice was that the temperature seemed to bother quite a few of the students. Many lost their battle even before it started because they weren''t able to adapt to the heat, and Favian was mentally preparing himself to battle against this once his own match started. In theory it would take him about 8 matches to be crowned as the number one student, but he didn''t care too much about that. All he needed to make sure was to get into the top five rankings so that he could attend the competition and also help complete his favor to Aria. "Favian! Your battle commences in five minutes. Your opponent is Jerry," Professor Mildred said as she pointed towards a rather bulky looking individual. ''Guess it''s my turn now,'' Favian thought as he walked towards his allocated part of the pitch. His opponent was already stood inside the barrier that surrounded their combat area. Favian was able to notice that Jerry was a dwarf. He was short and had a brown beard that almost fell to the floor. This was a trademark of the appearance of any dwarf, as they prided themselves with their beards. A longer, more voluminous beard was a sign of status in their culture. The moment Favian entered the barrier that connected the outside world and his area of battle, he felt a huge change in the atmosphere. The heat was smoldering from inside this area. The distance between himself and his opponent was around 20 meters, and the surroundings seemed to not be affected by the temperature. It was only himself and Jerry who were being bombarded by this insane weather condition. "Begin!" Mildred shouted, as she flew above the two. She would watch and judge the match from about 30 meters in the air, and make sure that nobody got injured. If Favian wasn''t completely concentrated on his battle, then he would probably have laughed himself into an early death because of the appearance of an old lady on a broomstick in the air. ''Could it be any more clich¨¦,'' he would think. Only moments after Mildred''s shout, the Jerry the dwarf sprinted towards Favian with his large hammer held by his hands. The way the dwarf ran was very unique, as the hammer he used was almost double his size, and he had to hold it high up in the air, which hindered his mobility and speed. It looked like he would trip and fall any moment, but somehow he was able to keep his balance. Jerry chanted a spell quickly, and a shimmering brown light encased his hammer. The hammer now looked like it was a rock in the shape of a hammer after having been bolstered by his magic. Its weight also increased greatly, but the dwarf was still able to easily keep it lifted due to his high amount of strength. BANG Soil was flung into the air and a crater was now visible where Favian was just stood. Jerry''s hammer was currently planted almost 4 meters into the ground, his swing having been brought down with such a great amount of force. However, Favian was nowhere to be seen, to his dismay. "Where did h-" Jerry shouted, but his sentence was cut short with a punch to his neck, his vision turning completely black, after which he collapsed onto the ground. "The winner is Favian!" Mildred shouted, after which she quickly checked up on Jerry, and covered him in a bright cocoon of magic particles which quickly healed him. "Well done Favian!" Licht shouted, having watched the whole battle from the spectating area, which was just a a stretch of grass to the sideline of the battle areas. Fortunately, the barrier surrounding the areas protected spectators from the battles inside. "Thanks," he replied as he walked towards Licht. He hadn''t been challenged in the slightest, and didn''t even use any magic to defeat his opponent. All that Favian had to do was dodge his opponents slow and heavy strike, and attack him with all of his force. ''That wasn''t challenging at all. If it keeps on going like this, I won''t even have to use any magic,'' Favian thought. This thought of his was proven correct after his next six battles ended as quickly as his first. Favian was able to suss out exactly what his opponents'' weaknesses were, and attack them with his own strengths. For instance, his second battle was against a human girl who used her hands to shoot magical bullets at him. However, her downfall was that she needed to focus all of her energy into casting her spell, which took almost 5 seconds. 5 seconds was more than enough time for Favian to use his spell Decoy, which projected an image of himself into the mind of his opponent. Like this, he disoriented her by making her think he was stood right behind her, and in her confusion she stopped casting. After that Favian was able to knock her out rather quickly. After seven rounds of battles, there were now only eight individuals left in the competition. Only one more round would determine whom the group representing the academy would consist of. Licht and Favian had both been able to make it this far without too much hassle. However, their luck seemed to be running low now. Licht''s next opponent was no other than the individual Favian''s game system stated to be ''Excellent quality''. "Licht, be careful with this one, she''s got a really oppressive aura," Favian said as he looked at his friend''s opponent. The girl that Licht was up against was relatively petite, but despite this gave off a terrifying energy. Her blond hair was tied up in a bun, with a single streak of green being found within it. She had eyes as green as an emerald, and smiled at Licht as she approached her. "Let''s have a nice go at it Licht," the girl said, her voice silky smooth. She currently wore a skin-tight latex bodysuit, revealing her amazing physique and curves.