Magick: Road of Ash

[bandicoot879]

I don't know how to embed image so i'll just link the cover's url: https://imgur.com/a/magickroadofash-85DdglP

Blurb:

In a world where magick reigns supreme, Wilhelm is just another mage with humble talent dreaming of one day becoming the Magus.

Though his days and nights are marked by blood and filled with relentless training, scars from the past prevent him from advancing in rank, and his long-time obsession with Elaine, the girl with blazing red hair, has resulted in nothing.

Until he finally completes the mysterious and unfinished rune that he's been trying to crack for years. An ancient temple emerges, interrupting the city's festival and setting off the start of a long journey spanning decades and centuries.

From common hardship to fighting against the most powerful mages in the world, Wilhelm starts as a naive yet determined youth and, gradually, transforms into a wise man.

And even if he fails . . .

He will rise from the ashes.

Note:

This is a rough draft with some major changes that I have yet to make. I have yet to add in critical foreshadowing, and the very beginning (the first 10k or so) is something I plan to completely rewrite.

Some of it might not even make sense.

The first draft was 63k words long. I threw it all out, wrote the second draft. It was 103k words. Threw that out. This is the third draft, and it currently stands at 64k words and counting.

To anyone reading, though, I think my writing will still be enough to entertain you. Not waste your time, at least, I hope.

I've been working on this story since November 2023 with no feedback. I'm mostly posting this on here so I can feel like I'm going somewhere with this.

Any nice messages or critical feedback on the writing would be much appreciated.

 

[bandicoot879]

PROLOGUE
​

Wilhelm was running across a frozen lake, a strong headwind gushing into him, when suddenly, when his father finally caught up to him, grabbed him by the neck, and plunged him through the ice.​

He almost immediately blacked out from the impact to the back of his head, but he remained awake, white specks flashing and swirling in his vision.

His father's hands were thick and large, wrapping around his neck with ease. Blood squeezed for space under the pressure, and he felt every pulse as the ends of his father's fingers pressed into his throat.

Freezing water swept through the layers of his clothes and met his skin. Instant and instinctual, muscles tensed, hairs rising as goosebumps bubbled up.

Though the water blurred up his eyes, and anything beyond the water's surface was even more unclear, he could still make out the blue sky beyond and the expression on his father's face.

Rage.

His irises burned blood red.

With the water clogging up his ears, to Wilhelm, his thoughts were the loudest thing in the world.

It was as if his father had read his mind.

"You deserve death!" His father screamed as if his vocal cords were tearing apart.

His father yanked him out of the water for a brief moment, his grip loosening.

Wilhelm gasped for air with his neck half-limp, wet hair sticking to his forehead, his eyes shot with red veins.

"Why!?" roared his father with his jaw slack.

His father's grip tightened again and pushed him back into the water.

Wilhelm didn't even try to fight back. He shut his fluttering eyes, and tried to still his trembling chin.

He let it happen, because it was the right thing to do.

He deserved this.

Wilhelm tried to distract himself by imagining a perfect dream that would take him away from here. Something that wouldn't fade and that would carry with him into the afterlife.

But he couldn't do that. Pain wasn't something that could be easily ignored.

He quickly realized that his death wouldn't be easy or beautiful. It would just hurt and would keep hurting until he died.

Gradually, the air left Wilhelm's brain. Black curtains appeared from the periphery of his vision, the two sides growing closer to joining at the middle.

His father suddenly blinked as if he realized what he was doing. He turned and seemed to look at something far off. Wilhelm thought he heard distant shouting, and it may have been a ray of hope, but he didn't cling onto it like he knew he should have. After everything, why would the world suddenly decide to intervene now, of all times?

It wasn't possible.

Whatever it is that his father saw, it made him let go. He then stood up and disappeared, leaving Wilhelm to drown.

Of course, Wilhelm hadn't the energy or strength to swim up, let alone to pull himself out, so his motionless body just sank. A majestic light beamed through the hole in the ice, illuminating him as he fell. The waves drew moving shadows across his body.

After several meters, the light faded—and it turned pitch black. The waves carried deafening silence and who knows what else. For a while, Wilhelm counted in his mind, trying to predict on what number he would ultimately run out of air and cease to exist . . .

A sense of motion, a flash of green light, and as a pair of soft hands cupped his face, fresh air entered his lungs, somehow. It was a strange sensation, not opening his mouth to breathe. Regardless, he gulped up the air he desperately he needed. The throbbing pain in his head ceased, and both his strength and mental clarity returned.

And then his eyes were open.

A young girl floated in front of him with her legs curled up halfway, blazing red hair waving about, and she was about his age. As a distant light parted away the darkness and cast her in a pale light, she smiled at him, all warm and genuine.

Wilhelm thought he was looking at an angel.

This nameless girl then gestured at him in a way that seemed to tell him to follow her. Wilhelm and the girl, kicking their legs, soon reached the surface. Wilhelm grabbed the ledge of ice, pulled himself up, and as he go onto his elbows, a hand appeared before him.

"Here, take my hand," said a man, his voice elegant.

Wilhelm took it, and his entire body flew up. He landed on his feet, shivering, and his legs wobbling on the verge of collapse. But for the most part, he was alive and uninjured.

In that moment, Wilhelm wanted to do so many different things, to fall to his knees and cry, to pull out his hair and scream, to do something unspeakable.

Instead, he looked all around, scanning the tree-line to see if his father was still around.

He saw nothing.

The man, very tall and wearing affluent attire, placed a hand on his shoulder and knelt down so that they were face-to-face. "Don't worry. You're safe now . . . do you know who that was—the person that was hurting you?"

Wilhelm nodded hesitantly. "It was my father . . . yeah."

The tall man's face fell flat, then he sighed. "My name is Eloy, Eloy Vorus." He then gestured at the girl. "This is my daughter, Elaine."

The girl gave him a little wave and smiled again.

Despite her cheerful attitude, Wilhelm remained listless. He couldn't bring himself to move even a single muscle. In his face or otherwise.

He just wanted to stop existing. Disappear.

PART 1: THE RAIN WILL NEVER END​

​

CHAPTER 1​

For the twenty-eighth consecutive day in a row, in Ereglast, it was raining like a weeping god. As dark, rolling clouds covered up the stars, water flooded through every gutter in Greyroam Academy, and 1Gale ran through the grounds, tense with emotion.

Out of all the weekends for him to go off to Fort Blackreach to begin some of his training, why oh why did he choose this one? The one where Wilhelm stirs up a commotion?

God he was unlucky.

His destination, the in-door training grounds, was already near and in view. He reached the vast hall and entered inside. The pitter-patter of the rain against the roof disappeared, and it turned silent.
Gale's shoes squeaked on every step before he came to a stop before the front desk, where an old man sat.

"Hey, uh, Mister Owler—"

"I assume you're here for Wilhelm?" The old man inquired, yawning.

Gale nodded. "I am. How could you tell?"

"Well, he's the only one here," Owler replied.

This didn't surprise Gale. No one trains at one o' clock in the morning. "I've been told that he's been training inside that one chamber since Friday. Isn't it Monday?"

"That's right, and he hasn't stepped one foot outside that room since he entered it on Friday afternoon. All he has done is train non-stop. I know this because I've been spying on him from time to time. And I'll be honest." He frowned. "His technique is too good. It's like he's been possessed by a demon."

Gale's eyes widened.

"You two are close right?" Owler asked.

Gale nodded.

"Some of the other very curious students have tried taking a look inside," Owler said, "I stopped them of course. I didn't want them disturbing Wilhelm. But considering that you're his friend, I'll let you in. I think someone, at least, needs to check in on him. Besides."

He seemed to look inwards, at something only he could see.

"He's approaching his limit. You might want to be quick." He looked back at Gale. "He's in room D-9."

Gale hurried into the hall adjacent. The doors were umber slabs of enchanted stone twice his height, interspaced every fifty meters, one on each side. Above them, golden rectangular signs with the room codes drawn in black ink.

Gale knew his way around, so he didn't need to check any of the signs. At halfway, he went down the stairs, passed by the second floor, then the third, and the stairs came to an end a level beneath that.

His head darting left and right, he went right and, at the end of the hall on the right side, he found the door to room D-4 in all its eerie silence and intimidating size. Gale had to pull with his entire body to get the hulking doors to open. When there was finally enough of a gap for him to fit through, he slipped inside.

As the door yawned close, Gale sighted Wilhelm. He had his back turned and stood in the chamber's center. He was shirtless, warm skin glowing under a dim, yellow, ceiling light. As he clenched his fists, the sculpted muscles on his back tensed. Blood, their glistening red, flowed in between his fingers, seeped into the bandages that covered his hands and forearms. Dried-up stains of a darker, sinister shade marked the open skin.

Then he began.

A step forward. His staff, which he held in his right hand, matched his piercing momentum. The air twisted, turned hazy. Fire, raw and hot, shot out of it and launched at the wall, yet turned around at the last moment before impact. Wilhelm whirled around, spinning not with effortless grace, but with trembling rage. Anything in his way would be destroyed, obliterated.

As Wilhelm turned around, Gale caught sight of blue eyes. A listless expression. Yet behind that emptiness, Gale knew, was a world of pain. Enough to kill a man, turn him insane, to bring himself face to face with his reflection in the mirror.

The flames followed Wilhelm's every movement, performing maneuvers that Gale himself found impossible. Extremely tight, almost instant turns were done without blinking. The fire split itself into a couple dozen smaller parts, flowed around him without going astray, without colliding into one another. All the while Wilhelm danced in between the pieces like he were a child playing in the rain.

Every step ended with a piercing strike from his staff, splitting air.

The fractured flames then streaked towards the same point in the air and rejoined into one piece without so much as a hiccup. Stretched into a thin, fabric-like material, forming chains, weapons, other sorts of items, and other displays that left Gale dizzy with excitement and envy.

This was all stuff that Gale had seen Wilhelm do before; but never so easily. Something about training for so long without stopping must have allowed him to make a significant breakthrough in his control. So much so that, within the Ereglast, he was unparalleled in fire, with Master Flem being the only exception now.

But that was Wilhelm's master. Of course the master would be better than the student. Gale, however, didn't actually know the full extent of that man's abilities. He had only seen fragments of his fire magick, and none of those feats seemed to exceed what Wilhelm was currently showing here.

Was he now his Master's equal?

No. Not possible. But then again . . .

For a while, Gale watched from a corner of the room, where he remained unnoticed and ignored. He carefully observed, took in the vibrant red-orange flames as they streaked through the air.
The flames weren't permanent beings, though. After a minute or so, the flames would run out of energy and dissipate. Wilhelm would thus draw upon his mana to activate the fire shaping rune, and unsheathe another line of malleable flames.

Again, and again. Wilhelm didn't stop, nor did he show any intent to. With how he was using the magick, not using it to attack or defend, just moving the fire about on its own, he could practice like this forever.

But Owler was right. Wilhelm was nearing his very limit. It wasn't obvious at first glance, but a third of the time his eyes were closed, and during that his vigorous movements gave way to a deep languor. He would wander in a drunken manner for a few moments, and when he remembered what he was supposed to be doing, his whole body would jolt as he let out what seemed to be a booming, internal shout, then he'd return to his training with renewed effort, which would only last a couple, maybe a few minutes at best, before he got tired again.

All in all, pretty insane.

Just as Gale thought Wilhelm was never going to run out of gas, suddenly, all the flames winked out, and Wilhelm fell limp.
He toppled over mid-step.

Gale, having expected this, launched over, caught him before he hit the ground and really hurt himself. Gale sighed in relief as he looked at his friend's unconscious expression. Closed eyes, lips parted, hair swept aside, revealing a pale, sweat-covered forehead. Finally, the rage had left him. He was at peace . . . for now.

* * *​

Wilhelm's stomach twisted, his throat surging with bile.

Ripping off his blanket, he got out of bed and rushed to the bathroom. He fell to his knees, grabbed the marble seat with a tight grip, the veins on his hands changing shape.
He vomited.

Nothing came out. He had an empty stomach. All that came out was a long dribble of saliva. His body, confused, tried again. This proved unsuccessful. Nothing ended up coming out. All he got was a sore stomach from all the clenching.

Gale, whom he had noticed sleeping against the wall when he woke up, came into the bathroom and stood in the doorway. "You okay?"

Wilhelm washed out his mouth with water from the sink and wiped the edges of his mouth with a tissue. "Yeah. Just feeling a bit sick."

Gale gave the inside of the doorway a firm pat. "That's good; hey, next time I see you up so late, I might just tell Flem. You know you stayed up well past your bed time, young man?"
Wilhelm's dreadful mood suddenly lightened. He smirked. "Says you."

Gale tapped the side of his head, acting all smart. "Two negatives equal a positive."

Wilhelm rolled his eyes and chuckled. "Let's lay it even then." Gale gave gave him space to walk out the bathroom. "How was it at Blackreach? There any cute girls?"

"There was!" Gale pumped his fist. Hot blows of air seemed to come out of his nostrils. "I wasn't sure before I got there, but when I did, it was amazing. They were all really fit, and the hottest one was really into me. She was sort of hovering around me, so I started talking to her. Over the weekend we got closer and yeah . . . I think I've secured myself a date for the Ascension Festival."

Wilhelm sat on his bed, in the middle of tightening the bandages on his hands, when he lifted his head. He looked surprised. There was a hint of envy in his eyes. "You have?"

"Well, it's not locked in. I haven't asked her yet, but I'm sure she'll say yes. I'll go and ask her after school today."

Wilhelm stood up. He couldn't help but feel excited for his friend. "Really?"

"Really!"

The two grabbed each other and started jumping up and down, shouting excitedly. Once they finally calmed down, Gale placed his hands on Wilhelm's shoulder.

"Dude, you should ask out Elaine as well! That way we'll both have dates!"

Wilhelm turned quiet. The thought of it unsettled him. The only possibility he could think of was rejection. He turned way and went back to what he was doing, rolling white cloth around his hands, to hide the blood.

"No, it's fine," he said.

Gale frowned. "Why not?"

Wilhelm shook his head and remained silent. He couldn't bring himself to admit the truth. He didn't want Gale to give him the courage necessary to make that leap.

"You should do it even if you don't think she'll say yes," Gale said. "That way you can get over her sooner, if that turns out to be the case. Besides, I'm pretty sure she likes you."

"She does?"

"Yeah," Gale replied. "I'm certain I've told you this before."

Wilhelm pursed his lips together. "She's probably just . . . I don't know."

Gale slumped in his chair and let out a defeated sigh. "Do you have any idea how stupid you sound right now?"

Wilhelm smiled awkwardly. He really wanted to move on from this conversation topic.

Gale immediately sensed this.

"I know you really don't want to talk about this anymore, so I'll say this and nothing more. We're sixteen now. Everyone is going to have a date with them, and I don't want to miss out. And if you don't ask out Elaine, someone else probably will, and you don't want that happening, do you? The Ascension Festival is happening in two days, so you don't got much time left."

Wilhelm stiffened. The thought of Elaine being with another guy made his heart drop. He paused in what he was doing for a moment, cursing Gale for being so damn convincing.

"I assume I passed out back there," Wilhelm said. "Did you carry me back?"

Gale didn't blink at the change of topic. He nodded while staring at the books lined on the shelf next to his desk. "Mmh. From the dorm to the training hall, it isn't very far. It wasn't a big deal."
"Thanks for that. I also appreciate you staying here with me, but you didn't need to do that."

Gale waved him off. "No, no. I was tired anyway. The trek back from Blackreach was so long. After I tucked you into bed and sat down, I was out like a light."

Wilhelm smirked. "You tucked me into bed? Thank you."

Gale's expression turned serious. "Yeah. I even kissed you good night."

There was a long pause, after which Wilhelm and Gale burst out laughing.

Wilhelm finished bandaging his hands and came to his dresser. He pieced together a change of clothes. His long-sleeved white undershirt, long black plants, socks, his dark blue school uniform.
"How long did you really train for? Did you take any breaks?" Gale asked, as Wilhelm closed a drawer and opened another.

"If school ends at four o'clock on Friday, then that's . . . " He lifted his head, calculating. "Fifty-six, fifty-seven hours? And no, I didn't take any breaks."

Gale whistled sharply. "I don't know if I should admire you or be outright terrified. A mage should train hard, but to this degree? I would never. I mean, how badly did you hurt your hands? The circuits there are so small and delicate. They can't handle that sort of overuse without injury."

"I definitely did," Wilhelm replied. "But no worries. I'll pay someone to heal me—I'm going to have a shower now."

He took leave for the bathroom.

Gale smirked. "You could ask Elaine to! No need to pay anyone then. It'll be the perfect chance to ask her out, too."

Wilhelm shut the door. His voice echoed through the wood. "She's only a second-order. She can't fix my hands. If she was first-order, I would."

Gale's lips curled downward. Wilhelm was right, unfortunately.

Some minutes later, he came out of the bathroom, fully dressed and clean, his hair still wet and newly-ruffled with his towel.

"What you were trying to accomplish by training for so long?" Gale said. His tone was flat, devoid of its prior playfulness.

Wilhelm walked in front of his standing mirror and put his right arm through the sleeve and his left through the other.

"To attain the essence of fire," he said.

* * *​

He sighted her as soon as he stepped foot inside the classroom.

Hair. Red, long and flowing, shimmering in the light. An upright posture, hands placed over the top of each other. She sat motionless in her seat. Forever perfect, forever his to admire.
As he dreaded, and right as he expected, her chin turned and her round eyes locked onto him in an instant.

For a moment, their eyes met. To Wilhelm, it felt like getting stabbed in the stomach. His insides curled inward, and an explosion went off in his chest. The butterflies gutted him alive.
It was sickening, to be looked upon by such a beauty. How did she even exist?

"Ah, finally showing up at the end of the class are we?" The teacher asked. He was a young man. A first-order mage at that, Wilhelm sensed. All teachers at the academy were, so that came as no surprise. His presence demanded respect from him and the rest of the students. He stood behind the lecture podium with his arms crossed.

Wilhelm had no clue who this was. This wasn't his Mister Raymon, his mana shaping professor. It had to be a substitute.

"I don't know who you are, but if you think you're so special, that you can walk into class whenever you want—then here, solve this shaping puzzle right now. It's strange, because I didn't receive the puzzle assigned to you. It must've been misplaced, so I'll just hand you mine. It's the one that the majority of the class is currently working on." The substitute had a black cube in hand. He threw it over to Wilhelm. "Stay where you are so the whole class can see. Now go, solve it. Though we've had an entire hour to do so, not a single person, as of yet, has solved their own puzzle. I'd love to see you be the first."

Wilhelm looked up. There were about forty students all up in the auditorium. Either in hand or placed on their desk, each student had their own replica of the black cube, certainly handed out at the start of class. Wilhelm was very familiar with these little toys. He had been solving these things since he first joined the academy at age ten. At the start of every fortnight, the school would give every student a shaping puzzle to solve, based on their current skill of course Every student was different. It was their only homework for the class, and it was part of their assessment, but for most students, the task was about as fun as bending over and digging a hole in hot weather, and while it was inevitable that you would eventually get the job done, boy was it tedious.

Wilhelm lifted the cube closer and turned it around until the side with the circle was facing him. This was where his mana would enter. "And what if I solve it?"

"If you solve it?" The man scoffed. "That's impossible. If you could, you'd already be a second-order mage."

Wilhelm wiped his face clear of the smile creeping up his face and closed his eyes. He entered a whole new world, where everything was dark. The cube, small and intimate, was his only point of reference. Drawing upon his well of mana was instinctual, akin to moving a limb, and a line of white mana flowed out of his soul, which anchored directly onto his heart. Up his chest, down his arm, into his fingers and down the very ends of his right index finger. At this point, the mana left his physical form and entered the hole in the cube.

As Wilhelm held his finger in place, for a moment, it seemed like he was doing nothing. But Wilhelm was currently navigating the inside of a complex maze. He had done these before. They aimed to improve the durability of the mana. The cube was small, but with how many times it lapped itself, he was starting to create a single, continuous line of mana the length of this auditorium. With the added stress from stretching on the edge of corners, and how complex the structure was turning out to be, the pressure doubled.

At any second, no doubt, the teacher expected the string to break off, and that would be his chance to shame him in front of the entire class.

Unfortunately, this substitute teacher had picked on the wrong student.

Through all the twists and turns, the little holes and the elaborate twirls, his mana remained intact. With a loud click, audible to everyone, the top side of the cube lit up.

Success.

The entire class tittered. Many fell to their desks laughing. Wilhelm quickly looked to where Elaine was. She was laughing as well. It was like being blinded by the sun.

At this, the substitute teacher's eyes widened. He looked spooked. "Excuse me, but I think I forgot to ask for your name, and now that I think about it, you seem quite familiar."
"Wilhelm Aera," he answered. He placed the cube back on the front table and smiled.

The substitute's jaw dropped. "The champion! You're the champion!?"

Wilhelm silently nodded.

"My apologies!" The substitute said. "No wonder I couldn't find the cube assigned to you. That's because your mana shaping has already reached the limit of what a first rank mage is capable of! Isn't that right?"
"Correct."
Just then, the bell rang, and everyone started packing up, leaving their conversation out of the spotlight amongst the chattering.

"Yet why not advance if you already capable of doing so?" The substitute asked. "I'm confused. What's with the wait? It's actually what some of my colleagues have been speaking about as of late. You're lagging behind your peers, you know? Or is there some special arrangement you have going on?"

Wilhelm frowned. Other students walked past, and he wanted to escape with them, rather than broach the topic. "It's . . . complicated, but don't worry, sir. It's not a big deal."

The substitute started to pack up his stuff. He didn't look so convinced as he forced a smile. "I hope so."

Wilhelm turned and left class.

Green vines strangled the cobblestone walls, their many leaves covering up the grey brick stone. At regular intervals, the walls had cozy alcoves set into them, where students could have their out-of-the-way conversations and not disturb others by standing in the middle of the hall, absorbed in their own world.

He slowed in his steps when he saw Elaine waiting outside class in one of those alcoves, all alone.

Wilhelm's heart skipped a beat. His chest tightened like a screw.

An empty hallway. Distant voices from around the end of the hall. But Elaine didn't look at him. She kept her eyes on the ground, hands clasped together in front of her dark brown skirt.
Wilhelm thought of what he could say but held his tongue. Though she had saved him that day, since then

He turned left and began walking and looked out the window idly, the image of Elaine burning in his mind, yet fading with every passing second.

"Wilhelm!" Elaine suddenly called out.

Wilhelm jolted. He came to a stop, turned, saw Elaine strut towards him, one leg after the other in a straight line.

She got close, erringly so. She looked down—down at his hands. "Why are your hands all bandaged up?"

God you're beautiful. He almost let that slip out but luckily his tongue didn't betray him.

"I was training," he said.

"Well . . . not just any training," Elaine replied. "I sense the blood, Wilhelm. You're hurt."

Wilhelm looked past her. He didn't want the girl of his dreams to know about this stuff.

Elaine spoke in a polite tone. "Can you show me?"

Reluctantly, Wilhelm gave her his hands. Elaine held it in both her hands and closed her eyes.

Wilhelm felt a warm energy flow through him. He was used to this feeling, so he wasn't surprised. Healers always use this sort of spell when checking a patient's condition. This energy quickly concentrated in his forearms and hands. Elaine's face fell.

She finished and opened her eyes with an aghast expression. "You really did train for that long. Why? This is madness. You—you'll cripple yourself."

Wilhelm's face hardened. "Elaine. It's fine. I'm going to see a healer after school. They'll fix me up."

"I can," Elaine blurted out.

"You can?"

"Yeah," Elaine said. "I'm more capable than I look, don't you think?"

"But . . . " He paused. Elaine had brought their hands lower and out of the way, so she didn't make it obvious that she hadn't let go.

If it were anyone else, Wilhelm would have pointed it out. But this was Elaine. Why would he sabotage himself? "That doesn't make sense. The cleric I see says that only a first-order mage can heal these sorts of injuries."

"Well . . . " She bit her lips and got closer to him. She whispered under her breath. "Just don't tell anyone I helped you then."

Guided by Elaine, Wilhelm and her sat down in the alcove. Wilhelm, his back against the wall, knees up. Elaine, legs crossed, hair flowing over one shoulder.

"I'm going to need you to unroll the bandages."

Wilhelm began doing so. "How long you going to take?"

"Oh, not much longer than your own cleric would. Fifteen to twenty minutes, I'd say."

Wilhelm was going to say he would miss class but stopped himself. Class could wait. After Elaine had saved them that day, for a while, as she and her father helped him enroll and get settled into the academy, they had been friends. But over the years, their number of interactions had gradually dwindled, and they grew distant. Now, they barely talked. Wilhelm was very grateful to her, and he would never forget what she had done for him, but time passes, and people move on. The ice melts.

Wilhelm unwound the bandages, slowly revealing the terror he kept underneath. Left untreated, the wound spread across his hand like an infectious plague. Ripped off in parts, the skin hung off in ugly strips. Only small islands of pale skin remained. Everything else was a pale red and a spotted and sickly yellow.

"Oh my God," Elaine said. "What have you done to yourself?"

"I paid a price," Wilhelm said.

Elaine paused, taken aback by the answer. She gave a slow nod. "And your other hand is like this as well?"

"It's only slightly better off this one."

"Please, undo it for me then, if you could."

"Yes ma'am."

He half-expected a playful shove of the shoulder. Instead, he got only cold silence, and a pair of unpleased eyes.

Wilhelm unfurled his second hand. It was a similar sight as the first, except there was no yellow. Only red. Elaine started with his right hand, the hand that was worse off. She closed her eyes, and despite the disgusting state of his hand, she held his hand in both of hers, and that same warm feeling returned. It circulated through his right hand, trickled down his forearm. His body mended itself back together, the insides of his hand cracked, like he was being electrocuted.

Seeing that it was working, Wilhelm chalked it up to her being the one and only heir of House Vorus. Her esteemed family was sure to have some powerful runes hidden inside their vault, those that exceeded the power of other runes at the same rank, though they might have the same function. Some runes are more efficient than other runes.

That she would go so far as to do this for him made him think. She might actually like him, huh? This thought made his heart beat faster.

As Elaine worked, he observed her. Her face was so close. Like he could just lean in and—

Stiff-faced, he swallowed the thought, lest he actually acted upon it.

When Elaine finally opened her eyes, and Wilhelm quickly averted his gaze. She might have caught a glimpse of the look in his eyes, but nothing more he hoped. Then he looked back.
She smiled. "That's one down."

As Elaine let go of his hand, Wilhelm marveled at the difference. Apart from the dry blood, his hand looked and felt perfectly normal. In his biased opinion, it looked even better than when the cleric did it.

He ran a pulse of mana through his hand and didn't feel any sharp pain. He didn't do anything more than that, though. For the time being, those circuits needed time to rest, even for him.
"I'll do the other one now," Elaine said. "Here, give me your hand."

Wilhelm gave her his left hand, and she began the same process. Several minutes later, however, she opened her eyes prematurely. "Wilhelm."

The young man, idly looking out the window, looked back. "Yes?"

"Please, don't tell me you'll ever do this again," Elaine said.

"I can't promise that."

"Why not? This is insanity."

He understood where she was coming from. Gale said basically the same thing, but he couldn't let such thoughts get in his way. "Elaine, I know you might be concerned, but—"

Elaine gave him a stern look. "I am concerned."

Wilhelm's mind took a second to process that statement and realize that she actually meant it. He blinked. "Umm . . . thank you—for being concerned."

She snaked her head at him, blushing. "You didn't think that?"

His heart jumped in excitement, but on the surface he remained calm. The edges of his lips curled upward. "Sort of . . . anyhow, I'm not likely to do it again, but it was the only way."

"Only way to what?" Elaine asked.

Wilhelm considered what to say. He then curled his fingers inward and grasped the air, the tendons on the inside of his wrist rising against the skin. "To push myself to the limit. At that limit, I would find that spark. The spark that will set my heart alight, cast away the shadows, and sustain me until the end of time."

Elaine's mouth hung ajar. She seemed unsure as to how to respond.

"Basically, I was trying to advance my mastery of fire," Wilhelm said.

Having put it plainly, Elaine nodded. "Oh, I see. But there shouldn't be a need to go that far? You're already really good. Like, you're already at the limit of what you can attain. Beyond that is the essence of fire, but that's just impossible."

"It's not impossible."

"The . . . essence of fire?"

Wilhelm nodded. "During that long bout of training, I finally touched upon it; that barrier. I'm close, but I'm missing something. I can feel it."

"You're kidding," Elaine said.

"I'm not," Wilhelm said.

Elaine's eyes blinked rapidly. "If a mage does attain it, isn't that usually when they're rank three? Heck, there's not a single person in the city that's achieved their first elemental transformation, including Lord Kayle. And you say you want to do that while you're still a third-rate apprentice? How is that possible?"

The past flashed before Wilhelm. He was in a dark chamber—if there was ever a bottom to oblivion this would be it—and he was practicing, drilling a series of fire control exercises. A giant of a man stood to the side, his arms crossed. Wilhelm's palms were covered in blood. An all too familiar sight.

Then he came back to reality.

He met Elaine's eyes, cold and unafraid. "Practice. An unbelievable amount."

Elaine turned disquieted.

"Are you done healing my hand?" Wilhelm said. He had long noticed a lack of warmth in his hand. He liked the feeling of her soft skin, but it felt awkward at this point.
"Oh, yeah, yes, I am," Elaine said. She retracted her hand and leaned back and curled a strand of stray hair behind her ear.

"Thanks for this," Wilhelm said. "I appreciate it lots."

Elaine shook her head. "It's fine. I was just doing what I thought any one else would do. And as a healer, it's only right to help out someone who's hurt. You're fine and all now, but what I'm more worried about is you. I swear, if you continue, this behavior, this self-destruction, will become your undoing."

"I know," Wilhelm said. He came into a brief squat and stood. Elaine followed. "I'm careful, though. This training is calculated. See how I hurt myself, yet I'm still able to heal myself back into perfect condition? There, Elaine, is a line I do not cross."

"Well, one day," Elaine said, "You might just cross that line without realizing. And when that happens, no one will be able to save you. Not even me."

Wilhelm said nothing. The words too true to be easily dismissed.

Suddenly, twenty meters away, a guy jumped out from a nearby alcove. "Go, Wilhelm! You got this!" He shouted.

Wilhelm recognized him. It was one of his classmates.

As if that wasn't already enough of a surprise, Gale leaped out as well. He grabbed the guy and pulled him away. Wilhelm saw people sticking out the edge of the other alcove and realized that he and Elaine were being spied upon. Just how long had they been there for?

After pushing the guy back inside the alcove, Gale mouthed some words to Wilhelm. Do it, he seemed to say. Do it.

To do what? It was easy to infer what he meant by that.

Ask Elaine out for the ascension festival.

Wilhelm's eyes flicked to her. She looked up at him with a sparkling, expectant look in her eyes.

Wilhelm's mind short-circuited. Not breathing, not blinking, it felt like his insides were curling in on themselves. After a while, he said the easiest thing.

"I'm gonna go now," Wilhelm said. "Thanks for the healing."

He walked away, not looking back, leaving behind a disappointed looking Elaine, the light in her eyes faded and dull.

​

CHAPTER 2​

​

After class, Wilhelm couldn't help but punch the air over and over again. He didn't care for technique or how he appeared. Nothing could simmer his frustration. It felt like he was going to explode.
Why had he been so afraid? Why hadn't he just asked her out?

"I had a strong feeling that this would happen," Gale said. He sat on a nearby bench under the shade of a tall tree, the lunch in a metal tray beside him half-eaten. A small line of fire danced in between his fingers. A type of fire control exercise. "That was such a good chance to ask her out, but you blew it."

"I know, I know!" Wilhelm said. "Man, I'm literally going to . . . AAAGH!"

"In a way I pity Elaine more than I do you," Gale said. He dispelled the fire and gave Wilhelm his full attention. "Imagine how she must be feeling? I'd be annoyed if I were her. It's so obvious you like her. There's no way she doesn't know that."

"I might have done it if you and the others weren't gawking on at the spectacle."

Gale sighed. "Hey, I was heading to maths with those same people when I saw you two. I tried to get everyone to move along and leave you two alone, but no one listened to me."

"Oh. Thanks for trying, though."

"Don't worry, Wilhelm," Gale said. "You've still got another shot."

Wilhelm felt encouraged. "That's right! I do."

"I've got a plan," Gale said. "Here's what we'll do. You, when you go with Rayn to tend to the Lolaks, pick one out and gift to Elaine when you ask her out."

"I am not doing that. That is so—"

"Come on, trust me. She'll love—"

"But she's going to think—"

The two continued talking over each for a moment before Wilhelm gave up and allowed Gale to speak his part.

"A Lolak is red, beautiful, majestic, imbued with magick and the prayers of the people. What could be more romantic than that? Besides, you work the garden with Rayn. She's not going to think you went to all the effort to fork up the money to buy one yourself. You can just say—yeah, I happened to think of you, so I picked this out."

Wilhelm rolled his eyes. "She is not buying that."

Gale shrugged. "Don't say I didn't try then."

* * *​

It was history. It was also his last class for the day. Wilhelm found himself scribbling in his book. On the side of the page, in the margin, jagged lines joined together into small shapes. When he ran into the separating line, he went down, drawing another fragmented piece. If his teacher were to all of a sudden snatch his book away from him and flick through it, she'd find similar scribbles spread throughout.

He wasn't actually doing much here. He was simply going over the patterns, keeping the sigils fresh in his mind. He was mesmerized. It was either that or he was doing it because he was worried he wasn't doing enough.

It was all a part of a single rune. It wasn't finished, however.

Repeating in nature, it demanded his constant attention, drained him every second he wasn't thinking about it and progressing his understanding. In a competition of what he thought about most, Elaine would find herself in a tie.

As for what it did, Wilhelm didn't exactly know, but it was a fire type. That was plain as day. Even the slowest mind could grasp that after some study.
From time to time, Wilhelm would look over at the back of Elaine's head. He sat all the way at the back, so his being noticed was slim.

Looking away from here, he tuned in to what his teacher was saying.

"Yes, that's correct. Andrial Harasal is the inventor of the shaping rune and all of its configurations. Fire, ice, earth, shadow, lightning, wind, sound, any element you can think of, and there's a shaping rune for it. This established the first runic dynasty. While you would have learned this long ago, this invention was and is a far bigger deal than you may think. It started off what we now call the shaping revolution."

The young lady teaching wore glasses. Had short brown hair. A piece of chalk floated behind her, inscribing onto the blackboard the main points in big letters.

Gale sat right next to Wilhelm. He leaned over and took a look at Wilhelm's book. He brought himself lower and spoke in a whisper. "I haven't asked in a while. How's the progress going on that old rune? You made it past halfway yet?"

Wilhelm sighed. He lifted his pen from the page and put it down. He dragged both of his hands down his face. "No. It's like I've hit a complete dead-end. No matter what angle I try to approach it from, the solution eludes me. It's so frustrating."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually," Gale said. He looked out the glass window that stretched across one side of the room. It gave a grand view of the courtyard below and its magnificent greenery.

"The shaping revolution, like the bloodline revolution that came before it, rapidly increased humanity's rate of progress. Now that mages weren't limited to casting the same runes over and over and again, and were instead given manual control over what they could do, the ability to shape the element with their mind and spirit, everything changed."

A girl had her hand up.

Miss Caia smiled. "You have a question, Krystal?"

The girl put her hand down. "What happened when Vivius's Will descended? Wouldn't the decrease in the number of runes that the average mage can realistically access impact their elemental attainment? The level that they can reach?

Caia nodded. "It does. But it only starts to make a big difference when they have a lot. We're talking hundreds of runes. Though that's beyond anyone and anything in this humble city. Fortunately, for both rank one and rank two mages, this is not something we need to worry about."

Gale leaned over. "Maybe you could try that. Engrave a bunch of runes and see if that gets you to the essence of fire."

Wilhelm was in the middle of taking down notes. Specifically the things Miss Caia had wrote on the board. Wilhelm, not turning his head, continued writing. "Do you think I have the sort of money to buy and then engrave hundreds of runes? While that method can take you to the wall of elemental transformation, it will take you no further than that. The wall will stump you as ruthlessly as it does everyone else."

"That makes sense," Gale said.

Wilhelm finished taking his notes and lifted his head and put down his pen. He was about to continue his conversation with Gale, but something caught his notice.
There was a note. People passed it to along in hushed excitement. Eventually, the white piece of parchment landed in Elaine's hands, and all heads turned in her direction.
Miss Caia glanced at Elaine and gave an interested hum. Not bothering to address the occurrence, she continued teaching as normal.

Wilhelm had a gut feeling. Whatever was in that note—it couldn't be good.

"Is that a note from her secret admirer?" Gale whispered. "I thought she only had one."

Too stunned to respond, Wilhelm watched as Elaine unfolded the palm-sized note. She scanned through the message in a few seconds and placed the paper in the pocket of her skirt.

Then acted like nothing happened.

She couldn't but start fidgeting with her hands, though. Wilhelm caught onto this.

"School may be off for the next two days, but you you will still be able to find me in my office tomorrow," Miss Caia announced. Her voice enhanced by magick, everyone heard her loud and clear. "If you have any questions, concerns, queries, interesting or obscure thought experiments, give my door a knock and I'll be happy to help!"
The bell rung right after.

"Have fun! If you see me during the festival, don't be afraid to say hi!"

Wilhelm got out of his seat and packed his books and pen into his satchel. He slung the strap over his head onto his shoulder, where it rested.
He and Gale were the last two out of class.

They joined the ongoing stream of students outside and walked through long and halls and vast courtyards. Not without Wilhelm turning heads and getting constant looks, of course. He liked getting looked at. The way they looked at him. Reverent, admiring.

There was a beautiful wide lawn out front of the academy. The place was immaculate. Every blade of grass was perfectly trimmed and a long stone path led to the front gate. On the road horse-drawn carriages bearing noble insignia awaited.

Students formed their own groups, chatting.

"What do you think that note was about?" Wilhelm asked.

"No clue," Gale replied. "It could be anything really. But I have a gut feeling, and its saying someone was asking her out, and unfortunately most of the time its right."
Wilhelm's stomach did that annoying twisting motion again. The one that made him feel sick.

He spotted Elaine in the distance. She stood under a tree next to the front gate, her red hair blowing in the wind. She seemed to be waiting.

Waiting—it was a small act. People waited all the time. But Elaine? Heir of House Vorus? Whatever she did, even if it was the tiniest thing in the world, people always took notice. Thus a sizable crowd of about a hundred people had gathered, curious as to who or what Elaine was waiting for.

Wilhelm was still far away when a young man walked forth and approached Elaine. Before he even came within speaking distance, the onlookers were already screaming in shock.

Even from so long a distance, Wilhelm instantly recognized Dominik by the blond hair and the overall way he walked and held himself.

"Dominik!?" Gale exclaimed. "Is he trying to steal Elaine from you! We got to stop this guy."

Wilhelm's jaw clenched. He sped up his steps, went into a slow jog that he'd use when hurrying from one class to the next without wanting to stick out too much. Gale kept up at the same pace.

Dominik's voice echoed across the school yard. It was so loud that it couldn't not be enhanced by magick. It was like he was trying to attract as much attention as possible.
"Excuse me for being late, Elaine, and thank you for waiting!"

Elaine seemed to stare at him coldly, not responding.

Dominik smiled in spite of her cold attitude. "We both know why I called you out here." He allowed a pause, during which he stilled smiled. His face held this expression unnaturally so. No movement.

Fake.

"I am utterly stricken," Dominik said. His balance swayed as his feet walked a straight line towards her. "You have me entranced, Elaine. Quiet but intimidating, the venomous look in your eyes, like you're going to eat me alive, your flowing red hair. My you look perfect. I wish I were a poet so I could tell the world how I truly feel. So I ask of you this."
He knelt down and reached his hand out to her. "Would you wish to accompany me for the festival? To share sights of burning flowers? To watch the night sky brighten with red stars? To join hearts under God's gaze? If so, take my hand as gently as you do whisper."

Wilhelm pushed himself through the suddenly enormous crowd. At least half the school had to be here now, and there were still more people on the way, running over from every direction.

When he got to the front of the crowd, he saw Elaine looking upon Dominik with a confused expression. "How could I, as Eloy's proud daughter, ever accept to be your date? The rift between our houses is irreversible. Everyone knows that. You and I know that better than anyone here."

Dominik shook his head. "Elaine, we hold the power to change that. We each have grade four talent, are the same age, and, in my opinion, well attuned to each other. It's a perfect pairing, unrivaled since the founding of Ereglast three hundred years ago. No longer will House Vorus and Irindal need battle. We will close this gaping wound and make this city whole once more. Did you know, Elaine? Love can move heaven and earth."

Elaine tried not to look at him. As she looked away, her eyes stumbled onto Wilhelm. Her eyes widened. She gave him a pleading look.

Dominik caught onto this and his upper body swiveled around to see what she was looking at.

Wilhelm met his eyes.

Dominik gave the beginning of a smirk when he saw who it was. He quickly buried this expression and plastered his face with joy.

"Hey, how are you, Wilhelm?" He pushed his hand against his knee and stood up, all smiling like always.

He was a good inch taller than him, was better looking, and a lot more confident.

Wilhelm frowned. "Good," he said. He didn't want to come off as too antagonistic. There were lots of people watching.

Dominik nodded and looked back at Elaine while pointing at Wilhelm. "You like this guy, Elaine?"

The girl's entire body froze. She remained silent, but no answer was also an answer.

"So you do . . . " He looked at Wilhelm. "Do you feel the same way?"

Wilhelm looked at Elaine and she looked at him.

"And what if I do?" he said.

Dominik spoke in cold voice and started to circle him. "Then only one of us can have her. If you decide not to let go of her now, I am afraid . . . we will have to fight."
Wilhelm walked in the opposing direction. "Then may the greater master of magick win."

Dominik sneered. "You're just a third-rate apprentice. In what world do you think you'll win against me? Do you not sense my rank?"

Wilhelm did. He had long sensed it. His soul was bigger, breathed in more mana, exerted more pressure on the surrounding world. Dominik was a second-rate apprentice, a minor rank higher than him. In terms of power, this made a big difference.

"Of course I sense it," Wilhelm said. "I sensed your advancement weeks ago. Hell everyone did."

"And you still wish to fight?" Dominik said. "You might have your bloodline or whatever, enhancing the power of your fire magick, which by the way is the only reason I ever lost to you in the tournament, but you'd be a fool to fight me now. We're on an even playing field, and deep down, you know I'm the superior fighter. I'm the one who was meant to win first place and bask in the glory. Not you." He stopped and he called out to someone in the crowd in a polite voice. "Mister Sergius, if you could, kindly equip each of us with a dueling badge. And then set up a makeshift barrier so that we don't risk hurting anyone."

Several teachers stood on one side of the crowd, carefully supervising the situation and making sure things didn't get out of hand. Some appeared just as entertained as the students. A gruff man stood at the back of the group with his eyes closed. He looked like he we was going to fall asleep at any second.

When he heard Dominik, he opened his eyes. He seemed to be Mister Sergius. He scratched the side of his head and yawned. As he walked over, he unbuttoned the leather pouch at his waist.

"Alright," Sergius said. "No reneging on our deal now. And remember; serlius, not servius. It's easy to get those two types of wines mixed up."
Dominik clicked his tongue. "I know."

Wilhelm's eyes narrowed at the interaction. He had the feeling that Dominik didn't actually want Elaine.

He just wanted an excuse to fight him!

Suddenly, everything made sense.

"Catch," Sergius said.

Wilhelm caught the silver brooch and inspected the object for a moment, in case of foul play. He figured that he wasn't the person to figure this out.

"Can you assure me that these artifacts are working and not tampered with?"

Dominik already had the brooch on. The question didn't bother him as much as Wilhelm thought it would.

"I swear upon the honor and name of House Irindal," Dominik said. "May I not be foolish enough to think I can endure the dreadfrost on my own."

"Good," Wilhelm said. He put the pin through the pocket of his shirt. "I'm also going to need my staff. But I left it in my room."

"I understand," Dominik said. "Retrieve it, then. I do not want to fight you unless you are at full strength, using the weapon you are most familiar with. That way I can crush your spirit without leaving your mind any room to excuse your defeat. Do you have anyone that can do this? If not I can send one of my men to run the errand."

"I do have someone," Wilhelm said. He looked over to his best friend.

Pushed into the spotlight, Gale blinked in surprise. He rushed over to Wilhelm, who pulled out the key from his pocket and gave it to him. Wilhelm didn't need to tell him where his staff was. He knew exactly where it was.

They exchanged tacit nods and Gale was off, the crowd parting ways for him.

Wilhelm briefly scanned the crowd and looked out on the sea of faces eyeing him up.

So many people. Yeah, this was a spectacle to behold. He imagined it would be much more fun as a spectator rather than as a participant.

A hand tugged on his sleeve. "I did not tell you to fight for me like you're some knight in shining armor."

Wilhelm turned. Elaine had been practically breathing into the side of his face.

"He was going to challenge me eventually," Wilhelm said. "He's just using this whole ordeal as an excuse to fight me. He lost to me in the tournament's finals. He wants to get back at me for that."

"And if you lose?" Elaine said. "You're not just losing a duel here. He's going to embarrass you; destroy your reputation."

Wilhelm thought along that line and frowned.

"You know I was staying quiet for a reason," Elaine said. "Tension between our houses are heated enough as they are."

"You didn't need to stay quiet," Wilhelm said. "Your family is just as powerful and influential as the Irindals. If you swat away a fly, they're not going to make a ruckus out of it. You could've rejected him outright. There. None of this would have happened."

Wilhelm raised his eyebrows, pressing her for a response. He had his hands on his hips.

To that, Elaine had nothing left to say. She was beat.

Some moments passed in silence.

"I'm sorry," Elaine said. "I always freeze up when stressful stuff like this happens. I actually wanted to tell him no, but I couldn't bring myself to."

"I know what you mean," Wilhelm said. "The trick is to not over think it. Just listen to your gut."

"That's true," Elaine replied. She paused, hesitating over her next words. "Hey, did you really mean what you . . ." She closed her mouth.

"Huh?"

Elaine looked away, blushing. "It's nothing."

Wilhelm nodded and pretended like she hadn't said anything. If he was going to make his intentions clear, now wasn't the best time. If he were ever going to admit his feeling, it would have to be when no one else was around.

And he could feel the constant staring. He knew that some people would have picked up on their conversation. A rune to enhance hearing wasn't exactly very rare or expensive. Plus, who hadn't seen them speaking so close to each other?

As for Dominik, the guy didn't seem to care one bit. He was sitting cross legged, eyes closed, his staff laying in his lap. Breathing in deeply, growing closer with the mana, preparing.

Wilhelm looked back at Elaine for a second, as if he was trying to see through her. More and more, through his recent interactions with Elaine, he had a feeling that she liked him, which was weird because she had never come off this strongly before. It had something to do with the festival. Had to.

And it made him feel powerful. Like he could do anything.

Still, he was careful.

"I'm going to sit and prime myself," Wilhelm said. "And cheer me on if you're feeling generous. I might try harder."

Elaine laughed, broke into a smile. Wilhelm's heart skipped a beat.

"You already have a whole bunch of cheerleaders," Elaine said. "What use am I?" She glanced over.

Wilhelm followed her gaze and found a whole group of girls lined up in the front of the crowd. As soon as they noticed him looking at them, all of them screamed and started jumping and hugging each other.

Though flattered, he brought his attention elsewhere and sat down and closed his eyes.

He focused inward.

A round, floating ball. That was the simplest way to describe the soul.

It was attached to his heart, hugged its form loosely. Inside, his well of mana. It was a vast sea of white ichor. The surface was calm, but underneath were deep currents, fast-moving, powerful.

It had a sky of its own, blue and vast like the heavens.

All of this was real. To each his own, every mage, upon building their foundation, had a world of their own existing within them. It was more spiritual than physical, but it still interacted with the material plane nonetheless.

A vessel and that which it carries. Both were essential, but without a third crucial component, they were useless.

At the very limit of this miniature world, high in the sky, was an all-encompassing barrier. The veil, mages called it. It was blank. Yet in certain spots there were holes in it. Not unwanted injuries, but deliberate and precisely cut designs.

Runes.

Wilhelm had engraved them into the veil. Had made the cuts and stripped away the waste himself. It was permanent and in a way self-destruction. Fortunately, wide and sprawling as they were, even if there a million, it wouldn't be enough to cover the whole sky.

He could engrave as many runes as he wanted without worrying about a thing.

With a mental command, under the power of his will, a pillar of mana burst into the sky. It crashed into a rune in the veil, poured through the gate like a whirlpool, transformed from white ichor into something more.

The fire shaping rune activated.

In the outside world, fire appeared in the air, flowed around Wilhelm and then formed into a circle behind him. It started turning like a wheel. Sparks flew.
The surrounding crowd gave oohs and aahs as they watched. Not because the magick was special, but because of how well Wilhelm controlled, arguably, one of the most unwieldy elements.

After a minute, the fire disappeared and Wilhelm let out a deep exhale.

The fire shaping rune was a good warm up. His two other runes, fire veil and fire strength, weren't necessary.

When he stood up, Gale was standing in front of him with a wooden case in hand, puffing for air.

"Gale," Wilhelm said. "You were quick."

"Went as fast as I could."

"Thanks."

The case was long and wooden with a glass front. A wooden staff lay inside, sitting against a red silk cushion. It was made out of a dark brown wood, and three black bands wrapped around where he was supposed to place his hand. There was a red gem at the casting end.

Gale opened the case and handed him his weapon.

Wilhelm took it from him and Gale joined the circling crowd, still holding the case under his arm. By now, Sergius had set up the barrier. It rippled as Gale exited. Furthermore, the crowd had taken dozens of steps back, giving Wilhelm and Dominik ample space to move and fight, and allowing more people to get a good look.

There was a sizeable portion of people sitting and squatting and standing on the low hills that overlooked the whole front yard. They were further out, but they had a better view compared to most of the people in the crowd.

Before Wilhelm could retract his gaze, he spotted a man standing in the crowd, hands clasped behind his back. He wore a long black coat. The wrinkles were set deep into his face, and his white hair was swept back. It was the principal.

The man looked back at him and nodded.

Wilhelm nodded as well and turned to his opponent and focused.

Dominik was already there and standing, watching Wilhelm through squinted eyes. "You ready? Activated your badge yet?"

Wilhelm nodded and gripped his staff tightly. His well of mana churning, ready to beam any second now.

"One second," Wilhelm said. He pressed the button in the badge's center. There was a flash of blue light. Three barriers appeared around him. They hugged his form closely, layered over one another with little room in between.

If Dominik incurred enough damage to break through his first barrier, he would win, and vice versa. The second was to protect the wearer when the first broke, and the third was just in case the second one broke, too.

The badge used his rank as basis to determine how durable the conjured barriers were, which meant that Dominik's were harder to break. It was only natural for things to be arranged like this. It merely simulated the amount of damage needed to incur severe injury upon a mage of that rank.

Wilhelm and Dominik didn't exchange any more words.

The fight wasn't official, and Sergius didn't seem willing to put himself in the position of referee, so for a moment nothing happened, then the fight just started.

Four long icicles appeared in the air behind Dominik and shot forth like arrows out of a bow.

Wilhelm sprinted, his feet running hard and loud. He swept his staff across the air, conjured four balls of flame that precisely intercepted each projectile, melting away their sharpened tips with minimal energy. Their ends flattened, the icicles slowed down considerably. Wilhelm swatted away the two that still stayed on course. The others fell to the ground early, missing him entirely.

Dominik froze up momentarily and looked at Wilhelm all wide eyed. "What!?"

The crowd went wild, too. Cheering, screaming. Even Sergius finally woke up and started paying attention. The principal seemed impressed, too.

Just how was Wilhelm's fire control so precise as to be able to burn off the ends of multiple icicles as they traveled at high speed? This was the question everyone seemed to be asking themselves.

Wilhelm had fire strength activated. It enhanced his strength and speed, the toughness of his skin, his reaction speed. Everything about him—enhanced. A normal third-rate mage, when activating a rune to empower their body, would only reach the limit of what a normal human could achieve after training their entire life.

Wilhelm was only a third-rate apprentice, but he was moving as fast as a second-rate.

Something was enhancing the rune's power by a minor rank. The same went for his fire shaping rune and fire veil rune, and it wasn't because of some sort of bloodline. Instead, it was something else. Something no one needed to know about.

Fire magick didn't have the best effective range. The further out he was, the less control he had over the flames, the less accurate he would be.

He had to shrink the gap.

Dominik knew this very well. After recovering from his shock, he pivoted and leaped to the side. He crossed a few meters with seeming little effort.
Wilhelm followed. He ducked under sharp ice. It skimmed the hair on his head, whistled past his ears.

Then more ice. He rolled through thin grass and got his clothes soiled in the dirt. When he came to his feet, he was close enough to return attacks of his own.

He swept his staff across the air. One after the other, Wilhelm summoned two flame crescents. They arced towards Dominik from his flanks, pressuring him from both sides.

He couldn't dodge in time. At the last moment, an icy armor spread across Dominik's skin. The fire ate into the ice, melted it away, created slight cracks in the first barrier that lay beneath. No further than that.

Dominik hadn't been doing nothing either. Reason why nothing came Wilhelm's way for a moment there.

All around him, ice boxed him in. Took latch of his skin. Wilhelm knew what this was immediately, so he didn't try to resist. It was an inescapable spell, after all. Almost instantly the ice reached his neck, leaving nothing but his head exposed.

He couldn't move a muscle.

He was familiar with the winter's grasp rune, as Dominik had used it against him just a few months ago in the finals of the tournament. Wilhelm had escaped it last time due to the sheer difference in power. However, Dominik was now a second-rate.

Wilhelm felt the difference first-hand. It felt like the ice was crushing him. He didn't panic, though. He had been expecting Dominik to cast this spell from the very start.
Biting down on his tongue, his jaw clenched, Wilhelm cast the flames from his palms. Very precisely, following every flat and curve of his body, the fire spread and severed the ice away from his skin. Obviously, Wilhelm wasn't perfect, and he inadvertently burned himself.

He screamed like he was dying, but it was over quickly.

He fell low and dodged the sharp icicle that would have skewered him in the head.

He didn't manage to dodge the two that came low. His fire veil revealed itself. It was a blazing shield made out of pure fire. It covered him like an insect in a cocoon. It cushioned the impact of both projectiles. It wasn't enough. It dissipated as both icicles were halfway in. The barrier beneath lit up and protected him further. The icicles shattered but left behind thick, dark cracks in the shield like a broken piece of porcelain glued back together. Fortunately, it didn't break. It was on the verge of doing so, though. Surely, if Dominik landed another attack, the barrier would break and he would win.

Winter's grasp had a cool-down period of about ten seconds. That was more than enough time for Wilhelm.

He darted, took a few long steps, and then he was in range.

He pointed his staff at Dominik and let loose a red beam of concentrated flames that hit Dominik instantly. No time to react. Having incurred damage with his prior two crescent flames, the beam pierced straight through Dominik's ice armor and shattered the barrier underneath into scattering motes of light.

The crowd roared.

Wilhelm fell straight to one knee, chest heaving, bleeding from the gaps of his teeth, bones aching. He clenched a hand and placed it against his chest. He dug deep and found the strength to stay up, to not fall to the ground.

He looked down at the grass and just breathed.

Some seconds later, Elaine rushed to his side and stuck her head under his armpit and helped him stand. She looked dead worried. Wilhelm didn't like seeing her like this.

"I'll let you heal me again, okay?"

"That's exactly what I was going to ask to do."

"From now on—you want to be the one to heal me after every battle. That way I can save on some money?"

Elaine giggled. "Yeah. Sure thing."

Wilhelm laughed and smiled. His real smile. The uncontrollable type, where it feels like the whole room is lighting up and you feel all warm and good.

Gale was there as well, making sure not to interrupt them.

Wilhelm made sure to bring him into the conversation. "You got any winnings from betting on me or what? I'd be disappointed to hear if you didn't."
Gale grinned. "I did!"

Wilhelm pushed his neck forward at the revelation. "You actually did!?"

Gale lifted a pouch and threw it up and caught it as it came back down. "I made a killing!" He shook his head. "No, it's not much actually, but it's a nice amount for a guy like me."

"Care to at least shout me a dinner then?"

"Naturally," Gale said.

Dominik screamed out with a broken voice. "Wilhelm! You . . ." Dominik was standing there, crying, mouth open with his teeth clenched. "You're just putting up a front! I know what you are! I know what's inside of you. I know what gives you your power!"

Wilhelm stopped smiling. His heart dropped.

Everyone in the crowd turned quiet, to hear what Dominik was saying.

He switched to addressing the crowd. "You've all been led to believe that what enhances Wilhelm's fire magick is a bloodline, long dormant at that," he said. "But that's just a lie. It's something else. Has to be."

The crowd started murmuring to each other.

"What is he talking about?" Elaine said.

Gale's expression turned dark. He took a step forward, but Wilhelm placed a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

"Don't," Wilhelm said. "It'll only make things worse."

Gale bit his lip and nodded. He took his foot back.

"It's the reason why you aren't able to advance despite being such a mana shaping freak!" Dominik said. "Not because you don't want to or you're waiting for the right time, but because you can't! You can't advance! And there's nothing you can do about it! I don't know what exactly the source of it is, but all things come to the light eventually, and when that happens, everyone and I will finally see you for the fraud you are!"

Wilhelm stood there, staring at Dominik with a blank expression. "If that's what you think; I don't need to explain myself and the ways of my magick to an idiot like you."

"No," Dominik said. "It's because I'm right! And you know it. I know a liar when I see one. Come on. If you really can advance, then what's the harm in telling us what's with the wait? Just tell me and everyone else why—"

"Dominik."

The young man stopped, feeling the hand on his shoulder, the aura emanating from beside him. An early heartsoul mage. He ceased breathing, then craned his neck up at the man standing next to him.

The principal. He gave him a look. The type that says to stop talking.

Dominik gulped and lowered his head. "Shit."

"It seems me and your father will have to have a chat this afternoon," the principal said.

"Yes, sir," Dominik said.

The principal turned and addressed the crowd. "I would now appreciate if everyone could disperse and go about their day like normal. Show's over."

With the assistance of the teachers standing around, the students scattered. Some groups still remained, curiously eyeing Wilhelm and Gale and Elaine.

As for Wilhelm, he didn't seem very bothered by the ordeal. He simply shook his head, as if it were a mild annoyance. Then he sighed.

"I swear," he said. "I don't know why he felt the need to make such a massive scene."

"Yeah, he's such a sore loser," Gale said.

Elaine frowned. "A crybaby, too."

"Well, I got to take my staff back to my room," Wilhelm said. "Gale."

"Sure," Gale said. He passed him the case. Wilhelm took the case and placed it on the ground and put the staff inside and closed the glass lid. He pulled the metal latch up and over the clasp. It was secure and tight. He picked the case back up and held it under his arm.

"Well, I'm just going to put this back in my room first," Wilhelm said.

Gale looked at him weird. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Wilhelm said. "Just annoyed slightly."

Gale nodded in realization. "I see."

Wilhelm bid Gale and Elaine goodbye, then went on his way and back to his dormitory.

He reached the top of the stairs and walked down the hallway. He came to his door, which was at the end and on the right. The keys jingled as he pulled them out of the pocket in his pants. He inserted them into the lock, turned them, and there was an audible click.

He pulled the keys out, turned the door handle and stepped inside. He closed the door behind him and walked further inside. He chucked his keys on his desk and placed his staff's case back where it was. Laying against the wall next to his desk, which he had below his window.

He loosened his tie, took off his blue uniform, and threw that on his bed. He left his white undershirt on. Then he pulled out the chair at his desk and sat down. He pulled his chair in and placed an elbow on the desk and leaned against the hand of the same limb. He hunched over, not looking at anything in particular.

He felt through his sideburns and sighed. With his other hand, he scratched the wooden top.

For a while, he just sat there, thinking in the silence.

Then he started shaking all over. In uncontrollable rage. Like he was going to explode.

He started crying. He grabbed his own hair and squeezed it.

"Why am I like this . . ."

He spoke in a whisper, his voice trembling, breaking apart.

"I just want to stop hurting," he said. "I just want to be normal. Please, that's all I want. God, if you really exist, take this away from me, spare me from this curse. If you do that, I'll do anything. I'll pay any cost. I'll walk the ends of the earth, praying to you every step of the way if I need to. Just please. I'm begging you."

It remained silent, and he received nothing.

"It just hurts so much," Wilhelm said. "Being a mage is all I've ever wanted. And if I can't do that I'd rather die."

Again, no reply. Wilhelm just liked to think that someone was here to listen to him, even if he didn't believe in or think about God much in general. He had made no business of diligently praying, so begging like this made him feel guilty.

And it made him realize that no one, not even the so-called Lord, was going to help him here.

He stood, his legs feeling weak, tears covering his face. He wiped his eyes and cheeks with his sleeve and looked at himself in the mirror. His face looked so sunken. Like it was going to fall off. He didn't need to look close to see that his eyes were shot red.

He unbuttoned his shirt and made bear the monstrosity underneath.

The scar extended across his entire chest.

It was red. It seemed like his skin wasn't there. He could see the individual lines of his flesh. He brushed his fingers over them and felt their coarse texture. He dug his nails in between the gaps and felt the soft sinew below, the warm radiating from within.

At the edges, the scar gradually faded away into normality.

His lips reeled back at the hideous sight.

Then he started breathing heavily. In and out, he lost control of his lungs. Digging his fingers into the nails of his palms, he took a few steps to his desk, opened the top drawer on the right and pulled out a wooden box. He opened the lid and laying inside was a small and clear glass bottle. It was filled with a pink liquid, leaving only a small bubble of air between that and the lid.

There was a golden sticker on one side, which he hadn't cared to tear off since he bought it at Cullen's Emporium a couple years ago.

RECIPE: PULSE OF EXISTENCE. SECOND-RATE ADVANCEMENT ELIXIR. MAGE GUILD APPROVED & MANUFACTURED. QUALITY GUARANTEED.

Hands shaking, he gathered the necessary courage, and twisted open the lid, letting out the sweet scent from inside. As soon as he did, however, he regretted the decision.
The thing awoke from its dormant state. It seemed to sense a threat, so it rose from its dwelling at the bottom of Wilhelm's soul and rose up.

Wilhelm's entire well of mana caught fire, as if the white ichor were somehow flammable. Tall pillars of flames climbed upward, going higher and higher until they collided and washed against the rune veil like a tsunami washing onto dry land.

Wilhelm didn't even scream. He just fell to his side, mouth agape, unable to move or let out a sound. It felt like every fiber of his soul was pulling away from one another. With enough force, his soul might just rip apart and split into a million pieces.

He blacked out a moment later, then returned not long after to the pain receding.

The mizra wasn't stupid. It had a mind of its own. It had certainly realized that he wasn't actually going to attempt to advance. If he had, the pain would have only continued instead and grown more intense.

For a long time, he just lay there, coughing weakly, blood dripping out of his mouth and onto the floorboards, forming a pool.

Yes. The mizra his father had called it. A spirit that lived inside his soul, enhancing the power of his fire magick, but also attacking him whenever he tried to advance.
Breathe in the flames, his father had always said.

How exactly was he supposed to do that if doing so meant certain death?

Maybe his father originally intended him to do the job himself.
​

CHAPTER 3​

​

The next morning, Wilhelm walked along a paved path through a vast field of lolaks. In between was all lush and green. A beautiful scenery. By now he was so used to it he was able to focus on thinking alone. Walking, he found, often produced a continuous stream of intelligent thought. That combined with the hypnotizing rhythm of his footsteps always made him feel a lot better.

Soon he neared a man sitting on a wooden bench. He smoked from a pipe and sat with his legs crossed.

"You're late," Flem said. He blew smoke.

"Sorry," Wilhelm said. "I got into a fight at school and that made me really tired. So I slept in today."

"I know," Flem said. "That Dominik kid sure can be trouble. Good thing you won. I wouldn't except any less from my . . ."

Flem stopped talking and stared at him for a few moments, not saying anything.

"Flem?" Wilhelm said.

Flem finally responded. "How are you at that barrier already?"

Wilhelm's eyes widened. "I am? How could you tell?"

When had told Elaine that he was close to achieving the essence of fire, he hadn't been fully sure. Getting confirmation from Flem himself was reassuring.

But how could he tell without him even demonstrating his technique? Was it intuition?

Flem sighed. He scratched his cheek and accidentally wiped some ash on it, drawing a gray line across his cheek. "Because of your spirit. It feels different. Warmer, louder. It's sort of the same mechanism through which a mage can remotely sense the rank of another. We're all connected by the source of magick. Through that and closeness of our proximity, we can sense each other's rank, allowing us to know if someone can crush us like a bug. However, the spirit is a reflection of who you are."

Huh. That was the first time anyone had ever explained to him depth what the spirit really was. Simple stuff like this he knew about but overlooked in place of other things that piqued his interest.

Flem sat back and took another puff. "So your father's method does work," he said. "Just train until you drop dead. Hell, if I knew that I would've got to the barrier much earlier than I had. Unfortunately, I'm still be here. But I'm sure you'll fair better than I do. I mean . . ." He laughed. "A sixteen year old standing at the barrier? If you can't overcome this barrier, no one can."

Wilhelm took a seat on the bench and left a comfortable gap in between. "Essence of fire or not, it won't matter if I can't advance."

"Wilhelm."

Wilhelm turned. "Yeah?"

Flem was staring off in the direction of the sun tower. The structure stood upon a mountain, towering up until it disappeared into the sea of clouds.

"Belief can be fickle," Flem said. "A seesaw. Especially to the young and inexperienced. No matter how you put things, you'll always find yourself doubting." He switched the legs he had crossed over. "Regardless, you have to persevere. If these emotions sway you, you simply do not have what it takes."

Wilhelm nodded in agreement.

"I'm not saying you shouldn't try to believe," Flem said. "When you do believe, treasure it. But you will always go through dark times where you don't believe. So when that happens . . . persevere. For that is the ultimate test of your dedication to living in this world."
Some time later Flem flipped his pipe and tapped the ash out onto the ground.

"Attaining the essence of fire, in my opinion, is the key to overcoming the mizra," Flem said. "If you attain it, then I don't see how there is a single world where you are unable to tame the damn beast."

"Well, none of us know that for sure," Wilhelm said. "It might not be enough."

"Of course," Flem said. "Nothing is certain. But it's our best bet, isn't it? And you should hear yourself. You've told me yourself that it's possible before. It's just one of those days, kid."

Wilhelm hung his head and looked at the laces on his leather shoes as he thought on what Flem had said.

Flem pocketed the pipe and stood up.

"Let's go," he said.

Wilhelm stood and followed Flem.

It was a short walk to the center of the whole garden, where there was a wide open circle. Paths led off in each cardinal direction, which split the garden into four quadrants.


Flem came to the absolute center of the circle and spread his feet shoulder-width apart.

"We must really give it our all today," Flem said. "Not to say we don't do that every time, but this time is super special. This will be their last meal before they get harvested later today."

Wilhelm looked out upon the fields of lolaks, feeling some pity for the plants, for they had no say in their fate.

Flem didn't use a staff. The man simply used his hands. Closing his eyes, he took in a deep breath, then on his breath out, swept his hands out in the direction of north-west quadrant. A wave of flames tided out and swept through the entire field, hot and blazing, faster than Wilhelm could blink.

But the lolaks didn't burn or shrivel into charcoal and ash.

They swallowed in the fire's heat and their petals started glowing a bright red. Flem took in another breath and sent out another wave of flames. The petals thus glowed brighter.

Flem did this two more times and finally stopped, at which point the petals were a smoldering white, looking like hot metal pulled fresh out of the furnace.

Flem proceeded to feed the lolaks in the south-west quadrant. After that, the north-east and then lastly the south-east. Soon every flower was glowing white, and judging by his tired expression, Flem was low on mana.

He walked away from the center spot and Wilhelm understood that it was his turn now. He came to where Flem had just been standing and looked at the north-west quadrant.

The flowers nearest to the center weren't actually at full saturation. Flem purposely left these ones for him. While far less impressive in terms of raw power, Wilhelm managed to bring these lolaks to full capacity. He fed the quadrants in the same order as Flem and when he was finished he saw Flem standing nearby with a stunned expression.

"Your technique is perfect," he said.

"Really?" Wilhelm asked. He hadn't expected such high appraisal.

"Yes," Flem said. "It's given, considering where you are now. I'll tell you this now; no amount of training will get you anywhere. At this point, in order to progress, you need to look elsewhere."

"Mm," Wilhelm hummed.

"Do something else," Flem said. "Anything. And lay off all the training. Just do it once a week and no more than that."

"But I don't feel normal unless I train everyday," Wilhelm said.

Flem pulled out his pipe and filled the end with leaves. "Five minutes and no more than that then," Flem said.

Wilhelm groaned in defeat but relented in this regard.

"How about that rune you've been working on?" Flem said. "Try working on only that for the next while maybe?"

"I was thinking that," Wilhelm said. He bobbed his head. "Yeah, I'll work on it."

"I refuse to believe that your father would leave you that rune and only that rune for no reason," Flem asked. "It has to be related to the mizra. Figuring it out could be just the clue you need."

"I hope you're right," Wilhelm said.

He was still sitting at the bench with Flem when the lolaks started transferring and sharing the fire between themselves. The flowers sent streaks of white light at each other, which the other either passed along to its nearest kin or kept for itself.

The sight of this occurring at such a large scale amongst so many flowers was a dazzling sight to behold.

The reason the flowers did this was to make sure that not a single one of them was lacking for food. This explained the pattern. If a flower was already full, it would give the piece of food to the nearest flower. If a flower wasn't full, it would swallow the piece of food itself.
In this case, since Flem had saturated every flower, only a few lolaks, tall, old, standing out from the rest, consumed the light. If anything bad ever happened, these few flowers would be their best chance at continuing their specie's existence.

Not that anyone would ever let that happen anyway. It was just how they were.

Seeing how no one was taking in this food, the flowers used these leftovers to create more of themselves. Where there was space, the surrounding flowers jointly coalesced a new lolak in a fiery explosion as several of these streaking lights collided all at once.
By this point in the cycle, the garden had run out of room for expansion. The lolaks were practically pushing against the fences that boxed them in.

Wilhelm sighted long white hair flowing amongst the petals.

He felt a chill and immediately he stood from the bench, bowing, his eyes trained on the ground before him.

Flem did the same, and for a time, nothing happened. The sound of footsteps came. They got closer and closer and then finally stopped.

Wilhelm saw nothing. Not a figure. Only the ground.

Lord Kayle's voice was as cold as the air coming out from the depths of an icy crevasse, as smooth as running water. "Red as rain. As numerous as the grains of ash lying on the floor . . . these flowers always make me reminisce the past. Thank you two for taking care of them over the years. I appreciate it more than you would think."

"Sacred as the duty is, feeding the lolaks is but a simple task, my lord," Flem said. "Such praise is not necessary."

From the way he started to laugh, Kayle seemed to think that was funny. "No need to be humble. It's rare to find a fire mage of your caliber that hasn't already pledged their loyalty to Malik. I'm very fortunate you just so happened to settle down here out of all places."
"I'm just glad to be of service," Flem said. "How are the wards I fixed up in the tower yesterday? Have there been any malfunctions, my lord?"

"None so far," Kayle said. "I'm sure the wards will integrate seamlessly with the rest of the tower. Now I don't have to spend money to buy fireworks every year." He took a few steps and then stopped again. "Wilhelm, you may raise your head."

Wilhelm did as allowed and lifted his head.

Kayle's eyes were blue just like his. It was that strong ocean hue. He had a young, handsome face, but he had long white hair and strands of it rested on his shoulders.

And he was at mid spirit fusion. He couldn't feel his aura, fortunately. Otherwise the pressure would have been near suffocating. Kayle was the strongest mage in the whole city. It was for this very reason that he was capable of being its one and only ruler.
"You have a good disposition about you, Wilhelm," he commented.

Wilhelm was genuinely surprised. "Thank you, your majesty."

"I can see why the principal came to me in order to put in a good word for you."

"Really?"

"Yes," Kayle said. "He came to me last evening and told me that your fire shaping now sits at the limit of the ordinary, which is an extraordinary feat for someone who has never received training from a true master. And do you know what he said next?"
Wilhelm shook his head. He hadn't a clue.

"He wants to escort you to the regional exposition, where all the representatives from all the big academies would be there to scout out fresh talent. And I agreed with the proposal."

Wilhelm almost gasped, as judging from the way Kayle ended the sentence, there was a 'but' that was yet to be said.

"But—"

Indeed he was right.

"—I gave him one condition. That you, Wilhelm Aera, must advance to mid foundation. Only once you do, and as soon you do if you wish, will I permit him to take you. I am not trying to block your path. I am only trying to make sure that you are ready. Understand?"

Wilhelm swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth. "I understand."

"Good," Kayle said. "I hope you advance soon, because the longer you wait, the worse things get."

Wilhelm nodded.

Kayle turned and started walking toward the garden's center, cloak fluttering behind him. "I feel like harvesting the lolaks by myself this year."

"Are you sure, my lord?" Flem asked.

"Sure as I could be," Kayle said. "Don't worry, Flem. I wouldn't want to mess it up."

"As you wish," Flem said. He looked at Wilhelm and gestured with his chin.

Wilhelm stopped dawdling and followed alongside Flem.

While Kayle reached the garden's center and came to the middle of the circle, Wilhelm and Flem stayed on the path so they weren't in the way.

Kayle, standing exactly where Wilhelm had been, where Flem had been, he reached his arm to the side, straight out and with a flat palm. White mist flowed out of his hand and quickly formed into a long spear made of ice, a light blue color.
Kayle gripped the spear and scanned the field for a good while, seeming to admire the view.

Then he lunged low and forward and thrust his spear.

All the flowers in one section suddenly got shorter.

The wind took a moment to catch up. When it did it blew Wilhelm's hair back, made it look it was a bird's nest up there. He squinted at the cold wind gushing into his eyes.

It didn't end there.

Kayle moved with a snap and he swept his spear out once more.

Wilhelm watched as every flower fell. He watched as the red got buried amongst the green stems. He watched and felt a churning dread in his chest.

Kayle left only one flower at the end of it. A lone being that was clueless as to how lucky it had been. Out of the thousands upon thousands of flowers that Kayle had culled, it happened to be the one he had spared.

It swayed in the wind, petals outreached, now that it had the room to fully extend them.

Kayle made the spear disappear and walked to the fence. He bent down and reached through one of the gaps and grabbed a flower. He stood up and rubbed the stem in between his fingers, twirled the flower back and forth like it were a toy.
Kayle looked at Wilhelm and Flem and then returned his gaze to the flower.

"The meaning of life is power," he said. "Before me, these flowers had no way of escaping their fate. They didn't even know I was coming. A lolak remains in the same bit of soil their whole lives, unable to move, unable to think, unable to stray from a destiny that was determined for them upon their very inception. They're not even conscious. To these plants, I might as well be a God."

He threw the flower back over the fence and cracked his neck from side to side.

"That is why we grow stronger," Kayle said. "To save ourselves from needlessly suffering at the hands of ourself or another."

He then strolled over and patted Wilhelm on the shoulder.

"Wilhelm," Kayle said, "I'll give you a piece of advice: stop believing in yourself. It doesn't actually do anything. You're not actually in control of all this. God has already decided everything for us; once finite always finite."
Wilhelm was flabbergasted, unsure how to respond.

Wilhelm nodded and hoped that was adequate enough of a response.

"And you know what?" Kayle asked. "I have a feeling that, deep down, everyone despises God. They're jealous that his station is above their own, and they hate it when they realize that. This is in part why they refuse to acknowledge that he even exists. Now mages are a bit more honest with this."

Kayle smiled to the edge of his face and got closer. "We all just want to become God."

* * *​

The unsolved rune was designed around a dot in the middle and the ten rings that encircled it, each of which were greater in diameter than the next, resembling tree rings. In between all this was a dozens of individual sigils that ultimately comprised the greater rune. And inside all of that were the hundreds of tiny logos that connected it all together. Even Wilhelm didn't fully understand himself how the rune worked. He knew it was right, though.

He leaned back in his chair, staring at the wooden top as he thought. On the desk was a white piece of paper. The rune was on the page in fresh ink and around the size of his hand with his fingers spread apart.

Wilhelm had completed ninety percent of the rune. But it was this last five to ten percent, the borderland in between the two sides of the rune on the level of the logos, that troubled him.

To put it plainly this rune was trying to do the impossible.

He let out a big sigh and got up from his chair. This was pointless, he realized. Sitting here, trying to solve it like this. It was like ramming his head into an unbreakable wall and expecting to something to change.

Why his father had given this rune to him in the first place, he didn't know. But from the look on his face at the time, he seemed pretty convinced that it was possible to solve it, which Wilhelm wasn't even sure it was.

The only reason he still worked on it?

Some part of him liked to believe in the impossible.

* * *​

After hesitating for the longest time, the words of what he wanted to say practically tingling on the top of his tongue, the feeling in his chest building and building, Wilhelm finally told Gale what was on his mind.

"I'm gonna ask Elaine out," he said.

Gale stopped what he was doing and looked at Wilhelm for a moment, as if he wasn't believing the words that had come out of his friend's mouth. He stood up from the low stone wall that separated the path from the garden, jaw dropping.

"You are!?"

The other people in the school courtyard looked over.

Wilhelm nodded. "Yeah. I don't want to live my life in a restrained manner, afraid of taking chances, viewing everything in a negative light, rejecting myself when that's really the other person's job."

"Yes, that's exactly right," Gale said. "Alright then, let's go to her house right now and finally get this over with. I'm dying to see you two get together. When she says yes, you'll hate yourself for not having asked sooner."

"She's not here," said the butler when they got to Elaine's house, which was not a house but actually a sprawling estate with multiple mansions, a massive green lawn, and tall, perfectly maintained green hedges.

Wilhelm blinked his eyes, taking in the piece of information. "Do you . . . know where she is?"

"Yes," the butler said. "You actually just missed her. She left to attend a function with the Master at the Rossden estate only about ten minutes ago. But she won't be back until this evening. About six I'd guess. Seven o'clock at the latest. If you need to, I can pass on a message to her as soon as she gets back."

Wilhelm waved his hand. "No, it's fine. I'll come back later."

The butler smiled and wished him goodbye, where Wilhelm was then escorted by a guard down the estate road and out the front gate.

Gale was surprised at how quick Wilhelm had been. "What happened? That was quick."

"She's not home," Wilhelm said. "The butler said she's at some function and won't be back until six or seven o'clock."

Gale groaned. "Just our luck. I guess we'll have to wait, huh?"

"Yeah," Wilhelm said. "We could always check out the stalls in the plaza. A lot of them are already set up."

"Yeah, we could—wait." Gale cut himself off. "I think I'm going to go and ask out that one girl I told you about. You know. The one from Fort Blackreach."

"You didn't do that already?" Wilhelm asked.

Gale smiled like a guilty man. "I got cold feet and delayed it."

Wilhelm rolled his eyes at how much of a hypocrite his friend had secretly been. "You'll be fine. The worst she can say is no."

"Eww—I have a boyfriend, you creep," said the girl in question when Gale came to her doorstep and she opened the door and he asked her out.

"Now get off my porch before I call my boyfriend and he hurts you," she said before slamming the door shut.

Gale stood there with his mouth gaping open.

He came down the steps in a stupor and slumped to the ground. Wilhelm, who had been watching on at the curb, rushed forward and caught him before he hit the pavement.
In his arms, Gale was limp like a corpse. He was beyond gone.

Gale exhaled like it was his dying breath. "She actually had a boyfriend . . ."

"Did she lead you on?" Wilhelm said.

Gale sniffled. "I'm afraid so. That woman is the devil incarnate. How could she give me the signs, all the while knowing she is already in love with another? My heart has been broken into a thousand pieces."

"Okay, stop acting like this is a dramatic stage play."

Gale came to his own two feet and sighed. He pat down his legs. "Don't let my failure discourage you now. I may have been rejected by this one girl, but if I ask ninety-nine more, success is sure to come my way."

"I know," Wilhelm said. "It won't. Want to go to the plaza now?"

"Sure," Gale agreed. "But you should know in advance that I won't be able to come back with you to Elaine's house."

Wilhelm raised his eyebrows. "You won't?"

"Yeah, my parents are going to be arriving in the city late this evening. I have to be there at the gate to receive them and stuff."

"Guess I'm on my own now."

"Know that I'll be cheering for you in my head from across the city."

"Appreciate it."

CHAPTER 4​

​

The academy wasn't far off when Wilhelm reached the bridge over the city's main canal. It was wide and a slight curve to it. He walked up, keeping close to the side railing. From time to time, he looked over the edge and watched the water as it washed through to this side, bubbling and frothing in white.

He stopped, a thought coming to mind. He reached inside his pocket and pulled out the lolak. He had secretly reached through the fence and grabbed one after Kayle had cut down all the lolaks.

He looked at it for a moment, then squeezed it tight, hand trembling, blue veins coming through the skin. He turned to the water and gripped the railing.

He stood there with clenched teeth, emotions bubbling, feeling like he was really going to do it, that he was going to throw it.

Just why did he feel like he needed to give this to Elaine for her to say yes?

Letting out a sigh, he placed the lolak back inside his pocket and continued on, except, not a moment sooner, a pair of hands pushed him from behind. He tumbled over the railing and got the wind knocked out of him as the metal bar rammed into his stomach.

He did a flip or two in the air before he hit the water. The lolak fell out of his pocket on impact and got caught up in the tides.

Wilhelm felt this happen. He forced open his eyes. Unfortunately, due to the recent rain, the water was a murky brown. He couldn't see very far. Only a couple meters.

While confused and angry about being pushed in, he saw the lolak. It was getting further away. He pushed the matter of getting pushed into the water to the back of his mind and started swimming through the water, towards the lolak.

He didn't want to lose it.

Though every stroke contained great power, he was actually a terrible swimmer, so he moved at an awfully slow pace. Competent enough to not drown, at least, but nothing good either. He appeared like he was swimming through mud, rather than water.

As the lolak moved with the river, Wilhelm slowly managed to shrink the distance, bit by bit. Every stroke got him closer, and eventually the flower came within reach.

As he grabbed it by the stem, he celebrated internally. He turned and swam towards the side of the canal, towards land.

At the same time, up on the bridge, Elaine walked across the bridge, hair flowing behind her, attracting looks from everyone. She would have walked right by if it weren't for the small crowd that had formed on the left side of bridge, all watching Wilhelm as he struggled in the water.

Elaine got curious at what everyone was looking at, so she directed course and came to the railing. She glanced over and squinted her eyes at the figure pulling themselves up and onto the road.

"Huh? Wilhelm?"

Her hands left the railing and she ran over.

The water dripped off of Wilhelm in a constant pitter-patter, creating a small trail behind him. Wilhelm sat down with his knees up, only a couple footsteps away from the edge. His wet hair hanged down and across his face, so he pulled it back and ruffled it.

Blinking through the water that was in his eyes, he breathed there for a moment. Then he lifted up the lolak and hung his head back, groaning in despair.
The petals were faded and mushy and out of shape.

He sighed.

As he stood up he didn't bother to pick up the lolak. He simply left it there amongst the water.

"Are you okay, Wilhelm?"

Wilhelm got a small fright when he heard her voice. He turned and saw Elaine hurrying over, wearing this formal white dress that showed off a ton of her legs, which he fixated on for a brief moment before his eyes flicked up to her face.

"Yeah, ugh," Wilhelm said. "Funny seeing you here, I guess?"

"Why were you in the water?"

Wilhelm's expression turned serious.

Someone had pushed him. Whoever it had been—would pay. Even if he had to shell out money for divination, he'd find them.

"I was just standing by the railing when someone pushed me over," Wilhelm explained. "It was . . . out of nowhere."

Elaine's gasped. "Really?"

Wilhelm nodded.

"Oh my god, are you hurt?" She said as she approached him and touched him on the chest.

Wilhelm smiled. "Got the wind knocked out me, but that's all."

Suddenly, Elaine noticed the flower on the ground. She bent down and picked it up. Wilhelm saw this and screamed inside. On the outside, he looked the exact same.

"Aww, this lolak's soaked," Elaine said. "Is this yours? You just left it on the ground."

"Yeah, it is."

Elaine put her hand out and offered the lolak to him.

Wilhelm waved his hand. "No, you can have it. I don't need it."

"Why don't you want it?"

"It's, um . . ." Wilhelm paused, a knot growing in his chest. One leg got restless and trembled.

"I actually wanted to give it to you," Wilhelm said.

Elaine's seemed unsure. "Why?"

Wilhelm let out a sharp exhale. His clothes were soaked, all his hair was wet and stuck to his forehead, Elaine had likely just seen him flailing about in the water like an idiot, and right now didn't feel like the best of times. Wilhelm knew all this, but he still went for it.

"Because I have always thought that you are just so beautiful, and I was wondering if you would want to be my date for the festival."

Elaine's mouth fell, and her eyes widened.

Wilhelm waited for an answer, but Elaine didn't say anything, only stared at him.

The wait killed him. Wilhelm thought she was going to slap him across the face out of anger for even asking this, no matter how out of character it would have seemed for her. He regretted even asking, but for some reason his mouth continued.

"You don't need to say yes if you don't want to," he said.

"No, no, I'm not saying no," Elaine said. "I just didn't think you would . . . ever want to ask me out. It took me a second to process that." She brushed back some of her hair. "I'd love to be your date."
Wilhelm suddenly didn't believe any of this was real. Everything seemed to zoom out, and his entire body froze in place.

He broke out of this state and started smiling like a madman.

"That's great."

As Wilhelm's breath quickened, he remembered that he should probably do something. It would be romantic, he reckoned.

"Show me the hand with the flower," he said.

Elaine lifted her hand. The soggy lolak sat in her open palm.

Wilhelm took the lolak and injected some fire into it, enough to make it burn and glow alight. Somehow the flower was still able to do this, despite how wet it was.

"To mark the occasion," Wilhelm said.

Elaine giggled. "What are you going to do next? Write a song for me?"

"Not for a while, unfortunately," he said.

He gave her back the lolak. Elaine reached out her hand and picked the lolak up by the stem. She had only twirled it around once, when all of a sudden, a circular, glowing white tattoo appeared on the right side of her neck.

Wilhelm only saw what it looked like for a brief flash of time. But that time alone was enough to recognize what it was.

A rune.

Specifically, the same type of rune as the unsolved one he was trying to figure out. This one, the one on Elaine's neck, however, was complete. It had achieved a perfect union between both sides, something that Wilhelm had failed to even come close to creating.

Elaine screamed and dropped the lolak like it was poison.

Wilhelm stood there for a few seconds in a daze, and before he could react a man kicked him to the ground and placed a sword against the skin of his neck. He wore full plated armor underneath a long brown cloak.

"Stay right where you are and don't move!" the man barked.

Wilhelm didn't move an inch, for fear that any movement would mean getting sliced.

From where he was, he also heard a woman talking to Elaine. She spoke in an authoritative tone and assaulted her with questions.

"Are you okay, Elaine? Are you hurt? Do you know what he did to you?"

From the look of things, Wilhelm guessed that these two were Elaine's shadow guards. The people that followed her around all day whenever she was out and made sure she was safe. Elaine was a high-profile person, so it made sense.

He couldn't sense the aura of either guard, but he assumed that both were at late foundation. Only that would be adequate to protect Elaine from danger.

The man forced him to stay on the ground for a few minutes. When some more hooded guards arrived, he was allowed to stand, at which point one of them gave him his own hood to wear, that Wilhelm put on without resistance. As he placed his hands under the fabric, another hooded person reached within and discreetly chained his wrists together.

In the distance, the female guard was dragging Elaine down the street.

Elaine struggled in her grip furiously and somehow escaped for a moment. She turned and yelled. "Don't hurt him! He didn't do anything wrong!"

The female guard quickly got a hold of her again. Wilhelm couldn't hear what she said to Elaine, but she seemed to try to silence her. It was a surprise that this ended up working and Elaine stopped fighting back.

Five hooded guards escorted Wilhelm. He stood in the middle with them surrounding him. The guards brought him down street after street. They brought him in the direction of the Vorus Estate, but when they were supposed to turn left, they instead turned right and brought him to an unassuming residence.

An old man opened the door and let them inside without a word. A standard procedure, it seemed.

Maybe to feel some reassurance about his situation, and Wilhelm didn't fully know why, but as he walked past he nodded at the unassuming old guy.

The old guy just smirked at him.

Wilhelm didn't know whether to feel better or worse.

They walked through the narrow hallway and arrived in the main living room. It was a simple room. There was a dining table, a bookshelf against one wall, and a fireplace set into the wall, a pot cooking over it. A pair of unlit, partially melted candles sat on the windowsill. He could see the dust in the air floating in the pale light.

Everyone stopped and one hooded guard strode over to the dining table and pulled out one of the chairs and set it down in the room's center. He looked at Wilhelm and gestured.

"Sit," he ordered.

Wilhelm gulped and silently counted his adversaries, estimated their strengths, his chance of winning. He grimaced. His chances were slim to none.

"I said sit," the guard shouted.

Wilhelm walked slowly and took his time with every step. As he sat down in the chair, the same guard pulled off his hood and placed his hands on Wilhelm's shoulders.
"Do you have any idea what you've done, young man? Who you've offended?"

Wilhelm bit his lip. "I didn't do anything. I just gave her a lolak and lit it up. That's all."

"But you saw the rune on her neck, right?"

Wilhelm nodded stiffly. "Yeah."

"Then I'm afraid we cannot allow you to live."

The guard paused.

Wilhelm glanced at the window to the left. It was close. Wide open. No one was standing near it.

"Is there anything you would like us to tell Elaine before you go? Any sad last words, perhaps?"

Wilhelm didn't respond. He stared at the ground.

The moment to escape—was now!

As he jumped out of the chair and leaped towards the window, no one in the room moved.

Everyone just started laughing.

Wilhelm stopped himself and looked around with a confused face. "Huh?"

"We're just messing with you!" one of them said.

Wilhelm frowned. He wasn't so amused at the situation himself.

"Doesn't mean we're letting you go," the same person said. "You're still coming with us to the estate. Don't worry, though. We won't hurt you."

Wilhelm's eyes almost popped out of his head.

He soon discovered there was a secret passage hidden behind the fireplace, which he crawled through. After ten meters, the narrow space suddenly widened into a spacious hallway, and he was able to stand.

There was already another guard on the other side, here and waiting for him. Except they weren't hooded, showing off their plated armor in full. In fact, Wilhelm recognized this person. It was the same guy who escorted him in and out when he visited the estate just yesterday.

It took several minutes before they reached the end of the tunnel. From there, they went up a long flight of stairs and exited into a wine cellar, its walls lined with barrels. They went up the stairs, passed by a busy kitchen, exited the building and went across a gravel path and entered the estate's main building through a side entrance.

A few corridors later, Wilhelm entered into a posh lounge room. It had two long couches that faced each other, with a low table in between. Gold and metal framed paintings hung on the walls, sets of knight armor lay on both sides of the entrance, tall windows that went from floor to ceiling, criss-crossing patterns spread across every panel.

The guard came forward and undid his chains. The man then left the room, leaving Wilhelm all on his own.

He stood and admired the room's style for a time before sitting down on one of the couches and laying his head back. He waited there for probably fifteen, twenty minutes until the door opened and a refined man entered.

Hands clasped behind his back, his trousers clean and pleated on his long legs, the golden chain of his watch hanging out of his pocket, Eloy strode inside with a displeased look on his face.

"Wilhelm Aera," he intoned.

Wilhelm stood up and bowed his head. "Lord Vorus."

"Sit."

"Yes."

Eloy sat down with his legs crossed. He didn't speak. Instead the door opened once again and a pair of maids brought in tea for the both of them. Both were steaming hot.

"Please, drink," Eloy said.

If Wilhelm had been a normal person he would have had to wait for his drink to cool down, but he was a mage. His fire strength rune lent him the durability to weather some hot water. He picked his cup and drank. In his mouth, the tea was only slightly hot. He tasted the sweet honey and hummed in delight.

"It's good," he said.

Eloy looked at him blank. "I know."

As the man picked up his own cup and sipped from it, Wilhelm subtly glanced at the man's hands. There were dark, curved lines all across his hands, akin to ink. Supposedly even a single line contained the lifeforce of thousands of demons, all of which the man had killed with his own two hands.

Eloy caught his gaze and Wilhelm snapped away, trying to act as if he hadn't been looking.

"So you have feelings for my daughter?" Eloy asked

The question felt heavier than it should have.

"Yes," Wilhelm said.

Eloy put his cup down. "I don't want you to."

Wilhelm looked out the window for a moment. "Why?"

"Because you are not worthy of her," Eloy said. "And you lack the knowledge and the comprehension to get that into your head. You saw the rune on her neck, yes?"

Wilhelm nodded. "I did."

"That rune is exactly the reason why," Eloy said. "You don't need to understand what it is. All you need to know is that Elaine is off limits to you."

Wilhelm turned silent.

"Now on the lolak," Eloy said. "I don't believe you had any ill intentions there. Elaine is unscathed, so it's not like you did anything wrong. In fact, I should thank you. It has given me a few leads and clues regarding the true nature of the rune."

"Really?" Wilhelm said.

Eloy nodded. "It has." Then he stood up, far earlier than Wilhelm expected. "That will be all, thank you. Someone will escort you out. Have a good day."

Eloy had walked around the couch and was on the way to the door when Wilhelm stood up. "Wait!"

Eloy turned and looked over his shoulder. "What?"

"I don't care what you say," Wilhelm said. "I am worthy of Elaine."

Eloy smiled and laughed uproariously. "Oh, the youth. So ambitious. So audacious."

"I'm being serious," Wilhelm said.

"I know you are," Eloy said. "But the only way you will have her is if you first kill all the people standing in your way; and I am one of them."

The aura of an early spirit fusion mage erupted. Wilhelm stood his ground, enduring the weight bearing down on his soul. As his mana crashed against the inside walls, he held Eloy's gaze without flinching.

Eloy seemed amused. "I don't mean to crush your dreams, Wilhelm, but Elaine isn't just some random girl you can fool around with. She is destined for greatness, whereas you will live out the rest of your days, small and unknown and irrelevant."

Wilhelm's teeth smashed together. "You've lived in a backwater your entire life and never left it, and you think you can perceive the potential of the youth? All you are is just a big fish in a small pond."

Eloy leaped over the couch and grabbed Wilhelm by the collar and smashed him against the wall—all in the blink of an eye. Wilhelm's vision spun. His ribs and spine ached. He felt his blood throb in his head and ears.

Eloy breathed hot air in Wilhelm's face. "You have no idea what I've fucking seen. You think I'm a bum? You think I'm a coward? No . . . in this city, you might think you're special, but when you leave this place you'll realize how insignificant you really are."

Eloy let go of him, and Wilhelm dropped to the floor, groaning in pain.

"You can make a start by first advancing beyond early foundation," Eloy said. "Guards!"

Two men came through the doors.

"Throw him out."

The guards bowed and helped pull Wilhelm to his feet and escorted him out the room, back through the secret entrance, and to the unassuming building, where they shoved him out front and slammed the door shut behind him.

Wilhelm stumbled but didn't fall. As he felt up his sore wrists, he looked back at the door with a resentful expression.

* * *​

Wilhelm looked up and watched as countless little red stars lit up the night sky. Lolaks flew into the sky, twirling and glowing. Every house, every street. A continuous stream that never stopped.
Wilhelm laid on his back on a green slope at the back of the academy, his hands placed on his stomach, almost at peace. Gusts of cold wind blew his hair to one side. He was well on his way to falling asleep, despite everything that had happened recently.

The grass felt more comfortable than his own bed. The dirt didn't, but with his head turned to the side it wasn't so bad.

God his body felt sore, though. Eloy had really done him in with that slam. He was lucky he hadn't gone and broken anything . . . or had he?

It was as he was sinking into darkness that he heard footsteps, sensed an aura approaching. He opened his eyes and lazily turned. He immediately sat up when he saw who it was.

"Elaine?"

She smiled as she took off her hood. "I knew you'd be here."

Wilhelm looked at her like she had said something crazy. "How?"

"I see you here a lot, in the mornings and sometimes in the afternoons."

Wilhelm yawned. "Didn't realize I was into a stalker."

Elaine rolled her eyes, still smiling. "You wish I was."

Wilhelm stood up and rubbed his eyes. "What are you doing here? Did your father allow you to come and see me?"

"No. I pretended to go to bed early but really I snuck out."

"How the hell did you do that?"

"Invisibility. I passed right by everyone without anyone noticing."

"Just to see me?"

"Ugh, don't get on your high horses now. You're cute, but that's it. Everything else about you is dead average."

Wilhelm laughed. "I'm flattered to know I'm average. Okay, let's be serious now. What are you here for? You don't strike me as the type to go on casual late night escapades for no reason."

Elaine's face turned serious. "I need to figure something out," she said. "That lolak. I tried lighting it up myself, to see if it would activate the rune on my neck. It didn't work, even though when you did it, it did. I even used the same lolak so it can't be that."

Wilhelm's eyes widened. "What the . . . "

"I know. It's weird. Could you try it for me again, if you could?" Elaine pulled out a lolak from the pocket of her cloak. The same one Wilhelm had given her. "Maybe you're the reason why."
"I want to know what that rune is doing on your neck first," Wilhelm said. "What is this for?"

"Please, just do it now," Elaine pleaded. "I promise I'll tell you later. Okay?"

Wilhelm closed his lips and breathed out his nose. "Fine. Give me your hand."

Elaine placed her hand out and Wilhelm cupped it in both of his own and he drew upon his well of mana, activated the fire shaping rune, and sent the fire flowing down his body and into the lolak.
As the petals glowed, the rune on Elaine's neck appeared, white and radiant.

Looking at it again, Wilhelm confirmed that he hadn't been seeing things wrong before. By coincidence, it was of the same design as the unsolved rune he was trying to figure out. This one, however, was actually complete; somehow.

Wilhelm stopped only a few seconds later when he noticed that Elaine looked like she was in pain. She was clenching her teeth and her face was scrunched together.
The rune faded and disappeared.

Wilhelm touched her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Elaine said. "Just hurts a little."

Wilhelm nodded. "So what does this mean exactly? What can we infer from this?"

"I don't really know. That's what I want to figure out."

Wilhelm then got straight to the point. "Would you believe me if I told you something crazy?"

Elaine shrugged. "Depends on the type of crazy. What is it? You know what the rune on my neck is?"

"No."

"What is it then?"

"I'll show you."

CHAPTER 5​

"You're not going to try anything weird on me, are you?"

"Shut up. Just get inside."

"I'm just joking. Relax."

Elaine walked inside and Wilhelm closed the door behind her and flicked the light on with a thread of his mana. As he came to his desk, he tried to remain as normal as possible, ignore the red-headed beauty standing one side of the room, idly looking around.

There was a girl in his room. There was a girl in his room. Living, breathing. And not just any girl.

She was hot and and sweet and beautiful.

Before Wilhelm sat down he turned and scanned the room, making sure nothing suspect was laying out in the open. Once he was sure that was the case, he got in his chair and pulled out a piece of paper from his desk.

He grabbed his pen, dipped it in ink, and started drawing.

He was about a quarter a way through when Elaine started to look at what he was doing and all of a sudden she was quiet. She hovered behind him the entire time.

Wilhelm could hear her breathing.

He drew out the incomplete rune a couple minutes later and pushed his chair back and looked at Elaine.

"I've been working on this since I was a kid. It's of exactly the same type as the one on your neck, Elaine."

She stared at the rune in disbelief. "Oh my god . . ."

"I don't believe in coincidences," Wilhelm said. "And this doesn't change that."

"How did you start working on this?"

"When I was about seven, I think. This was originally a small fragment," Wilhelm said. "About twenty percent of what you see is just that. The other seventy percent is stuff I figured out myself."
"Who gave the fragment to you?" Elaine inquired.

Wilhelm looked her dead in the eyes. "My father."

"Your father!?" Elaine exclaimed.

Wilhelm nodded.

Elaine sat down on the edge of his bed and slumped. "Why did he give it to you? Did he have a reason?"

Wilhelm shook his head. "He didn't say anything. He handed it to me one day, out of the blue, and from then I became obsessed with solving it. Couldn't not work on it."
"Your dad was hiding something."

"Yeah, I could tell he was," Wilhelm said. "He wouldn't tell me anything, though. He would just tell me to figure it out myself."

"Of course he would say that."

"You know how this rune is designed?"

"Yeah, sort of. It's orthodox, except there's ten lines not nine, and that changes so much that the two designs may as well not be related. Sorry that's all I know. I don't know much about runes outside of what they teach in class."

"That's right," Wilhelm said. "But I've done some digging and discovered that there have been people in the past that have tried to create runes on the same premise. Ten rings instead of the usual nine. All of these attempts ended up unsuccessful."

He looked out the window, admiring the twinkling red stars. "Reason being, none of them could unify the two conflicting sides, each of which are supported by ideas that contradict each other. The real and unreal. The hidden laying beneath the visible. Exactly the same problem that I've encountered myself. Everything I've said to you here—I came across in a book that spoke of these attempts as cautionary tales to ambitious beginners, and said that some things are not worth working on as they might just be impossible. But . . ." He smirked and bobbed his head. "Obviously, it's possible; so what I want to do is copy down the rune on your neck and use it as reference to complete my own rune."

"Sure," Elaine said.

That was way easier than Wilhelm expected. He didn't complain.

"Nice! Bring that chair over there then," Wilhelm said. "You can sit down in that."

"Actually, I already have the rune's design memorized. I'll just write it down."

"Oh."

"Hand me your pen."

Wilhelm did and Elaine pushed in her chair and wrote on the page already laid on his desk. A twisting strand of red hair falling over one side of her shoulder. The strokes of her pen, neat, uniform.
Wilhelm watched as the rune took shape. And he couldn't believe what he was seeing. He was seeing sigils that he had never seen before placed into positions that he would have never thought of. The 'ale' sigil, which he thought was a foundational piece, was nowhere to be seen.

And the logos, the little parts that connected every sigil, forming the mesh in between, was completely different. For a rank one rune, there were at most a couple dozen sigils. On the other hand, there would be about a thousand logos. Exponentials were terrifying and at a thousand places, the total number of combinations was basically infinite.

As Elaine continued, Wilhelm gained a growing understanding of the rune along the way. Near the end, he got the full picture and had an epiphany that made him pause. He stayed like that for a long time, mouth gaping.

"Done."

Elaine put down the pen and pushed her chair back, giving Wilhelm room to stand. He leaned against the table with both his hands pressed against the desk's edge, studying the rune intently.
With both the rune copied, all that was left to do was to gather enough resources for Vivius's Will, however much that ended up being, then engrave the rune.

He sat back down and looked at Elaine. She was . . . crying.

Wilhelm's mouth opened. "Elaine?"

Elaine sat there and held her head down, chin trembling.

"What's going on? Are you . . . Okay?"

He looked around the room though no one was there. He had no clue what to do, what to say. How was he to console her?

"I just can't believe we're—" She hiccuped in a crying way. "—We're getting close to solving this whole thing."

Wilhelm got a bad feeling hearing this. His face turned serious. "What do you mean?"

Elaine looked down and away. "I should explain." She took a minute to gather her thoughts. She stared into the floorboards below for a while. "On my tenth birthday, I was playing in the backyard when I suddenly felt this burning sensation on my neck. It wasn't very noticeable at first, but then it kept getting worse, until it felt like I was burning alive. I started screaming and crying, flailing around like I was actually on fire. I couldn't see it myself, but my entire body was red like magma. My father was the one who carried me to the hospital. He flew as fast as he could, and when we got there, all the best doctors saw me, did all sorts of tests on me, but none of them could figure out what the problem with me was. All they could do was lessen the pain slightly.

"So they put me down on one of the hospital beds, and I ended up lying there for hours. All I wanted was for the pain to stop. I really thought I was going to die. But my father . . . he stayed by my side the whole time and held my hand. I don't know what he did, but he eventually left and came back not long after with a cure. An elixir with this blue liquid inside. I drank it, and I couldn't believe it—instantly all the pain went away, and the rune stopped glowing."

Wilhelm's eyes narrowed.

"Crazy—I know. To this day, my father has always been very tight lip on how he got his hands on that blue miracle elixir. He'll never tell."

"Maybe he paid a price to save you," Wilhelm said. "And he doesn't want to worry you."

"Maybe," Elaine said. "Anyways that wasn't the end of the pain. Every day, since then, the rune awakens, and I experience a pain that, while it is far more tolerable, often keeps me up all night, and I'm not able to sleep or do anything really. Then sometimes it just flares up out of nowhere like crazy."

"You're serious?" Wilhelm asked. "Every day?"

Elaine nodded, tears falling down from her eyes. Her head fell to Wilhelm's shoulder. "It hurts so much." Her voice broke. "I just . . . I just want to stop hurting. I want to be normal. It's all I want."
"Hey, Elaine," he said. "I'm going to engrave this rune, and we're going to get a step closer to understanding what's going on here, okay? You know what—there has to be something going on here. Both of us have this . . . ten lined rune . . . it has to be related. I'm sure there's a connection here amongst all this. We'll find the solution and you can stop being in pain. I'm certain of it."

There was a long gap of silence, spanning minutes.

"I need to work on the rune now," Wilhelm said.

"You do?"

"Mmh. It won't take long, though. An hour at most. Everything makes so much sense now. Everything. I feel like I stand on a summit, overlooking the world. I see so much. Elaine, you can remove your head. I need to draw, thank you."

Elaine lifted her head. "How kind of you to ruin the moment. You could have drawn just fine."

Wilhelm played stupid. "What moment? The one where you're crushing my shoulder with that massive head of yours?"

Elaine shoved him with a hand and stood up and pushed her hair behind her shoulders. Having calmed down, she wiped away the tears. "Shut up. You sure know how to talk to girls, don't you?"

Wilhelm simply laughed and shook his head. He picked up his pen, had Elaine take her away her chair, and then pushed himself in, making himself comfortable.

Applying what he knew from Elaine's rune, he breezed his way through the logos. Everything clicked together without a hitch. Every idea was a good idea. Everything felt good and right. It all spilled out onto the page, fitting together in the exact way it was always meant to be.

In a short thirty minutes, Wilhelm completed the rune. Ecstatic, he weaved his mana in the air, putting together the rune based on what he had down on paper. It took a few minutes, but Wilhelm worked quick. When he created the final line, the white strings of mana thrummed and all turned golden. An indication that the rune was valid, real.

Wilhelm pumped a fist and shouted at the top of his lungs. "YES! YES! I ACTUALLY DID IT!"

He turned and saw Elaine standing there, looking just as shocked as him.

"You actually did it!"

"Surprised, huh?" Wilhelm said. "You know, I'm smarter than I look."

Elaine ignored him and reached out towards the floating rune, looking mesmerized. She stopped herself right before she touched it. "You know how much you'll need to offer to Vivius? I imagine a lot, considering how unique it is."


"I think so, as well," Wilhelm said. "But that's not a problem. I know just the person to ask."

"Who?"

"You'll see."

* * *​

Wilhelm slammed on the door with the metal knocker and stepped back. He waited, Elaine standing next to him with her hands held in front of her.

The door opened and Flem was there, his hulking size taking up the entire doorway. The top of his head was only a few inches away from hitting the wood.

Flem looked at Wilhelm. He turned to Elaine, then looked back at Wilhelm. He stared at him for a long moment, looked back at Elaine again, and then looked at Wilhelm. His jaw hung wide open.

"What are you both here for? Shouldn't you two be enjoying the festival, being teenagers and all that?"

Wilhelm looked around. The street was empty, but he couldn't be sure. "Can we talk inside, please? It's important."

Flem looked at them, blinking. He seemed to sense the seriousness of the situation.

"Sure," Flem said. He let them in and shut the door.

He guided them through the building. After moving through the first level, where the workshop was, and the second level where all of Flem's apprentices lived and studied and slept, they reached the third which was exclusively Flem's.

The exalted warden led the young pair into his office and closed the door. Instead of sitting at the main desk, its wood dark brown and polished to a shine, he sat down in one of the guest chairs.
After Wilhelm and Elaine sat down, the former proceeded to explain everything that had happened recently. From the lolak lighting up, to finally solving the rune and needing resources for it.

At the end, he passed over the piece of paper with the rune diagram on it.

Flem held the page and stared at the rune for a long time. Eventually, he passed the page back over. He placed the back of his fist to his chin, wearing a solemn expression. "If the wrong people learn about this rune, they won't hesitate to silence the three of us. We cannot allow anyone to know. Am I clear?"

Wilhelm and Elaine nodded.

"Good," Flem said. He stood. "Now about engraving this rune. It is only rank one, but it's design is a one of its kind. You're going to have to pay Vivius a steep price. Fortunately, I'm a rich and affluent man with many sources of income. I've got you covered. Just give me a moment."

Flem left the room and came back with a heavy chest and set it on the ground before Wilhelm and pulled open the lid. Glimmering crystals of all colours filled the inside to the brim.
Wilhelm stood out of his seat. "That is so many monster cores!"

Flem chuckled and gestured with his hand. "Go nuts, kid."

Wilhelm couldn't hide the smile that crept up his face.

Before picking up a crystal, however, he crossed his legs in his chair and engraved the rune into his soul. He cut into the veil, stripped away what he originally was, chipped away at it bit by bit. The veil's surface, previously quiet and still, began to tremble.

Only a slight obstacle. He steadied his mana and kept working.

He concentrated all of his focus onto the task. When he was finished engraving the rune into his soul, a black mist swirling with hazy white lines filled in the rune, blocking any mana from ever possibly getting through.

A series of words appeared in the air.

'TRIBUTE REQUIRED TO ACTIVATE.'

Wilhelm opened his eyes. "Finished. Let's see how much this'll set me back. I bet half the chest."

Flem scoffed. "Don't be so optimistic. Three quarters."

Wilhelm looked at Elaine, whom shrugged. "I don't know. I just hope we have enough."

"Same." Wilhelm picked up a crystal. It was the size of a bean. All of the ones of the in the chest were the same size as this. He closed his eyes and imagined the crystal in his hand, that he wanted to offer it as tribute.

The crystal disappeared from reality and appeared inside his soul. The black mist reached out, wrapped around the crystal, and took it back into the darkness with it. The characters disappeared and a tall progress meter appeared. It was completely empty. There wasn't even a sliver of progress.

Wilhelm sighed. "This is going to take a while."

After engraving a rune, in order to be able to activate and use it, a mage had to offer up resources as tribute. Elixirs, rare materials or monster cores, refined weapons—it could be whatever. As long as it had tangible value, Vivius would take it. Half of the tribute would go to him, while the other half would be given to the first creator of the rune.

This way rune masters receive compensation for their work, giving them the wealth and power necessary to create better and better runes, facilitating humanity's continuous advancement.
Wilhelm offered crystal after crystal, but the progress bar barely moved. By the time Wilhelm had gone through half the chest, it was but a slither. When he went through it all, he almost didn't want to tell Flem where the progress was at.

Flem sat in his chair, arms crossed. "How much more do you need to steal from me?"

"Five percent," Wilhelm said. "You don't suppose you have about . . . nineteen more chests just like that hanging around?"

Flem dragged a hand down his face. "This is great. Alright, give me a second."

He left and returned with a smaller chest a fifth of the size as the previous one. He opened it, revealing monster cores that were each the size of a baby's fist.

"The ones from before were mid foundation cores. These one are at late foundation. See how you go."

Wilhelm went through all the crystals in short time and despite the quality, it only brought the progress bar up to twenty percent.

Flem slumped to the bottom of his chair. He looked as if he was watching his entire workshop burn down in a fire.

Wilhelm reckoned his back would probably hurt if he did that for too long. He knew from personal experience.

"Is this a ploy to scam and bankrupt me?" Flem asked.

"No, it isn't. If it was, I would've come up with something better than this."

Flem let out a big sigh and stood up. This time, he didn't leave his office. He went behind his desk and opened up a drawer. Wilhelm heard a few clicks and slides, then there came a loud bang as something heavy fell out and hit the ground.

Wilhelm gulped and shared a concerned look with Elaine.

Flem bent down. Slowly, he stood back up, revealing a chest so small that he held it in the palm of his hand.

Wilhelm and Elaine held back the urge to laugh.

Flem looked at the both of them, squinting his eyes. "What are you two laughing at? Do not underestimate this box! I could buy myself a sprawling mansion on prime real estate with what's inside this. If this doesn't satisfy Vivius, then I might just give up."

Wilhelm and Elaine immediately cut off their playful attitude and eyed the small chest with anticipation.

As Flem gave Wilhelm the chest, the latter realized that it wasn't actually heavy.

"What was with that loud noise from before?"

Flem stared at him. "You don't need to know."

Wilhelm nodded awkwardly and opened the chest. A purple monster core the size of a water droplet sat on a silk cushion. Wilhelm picked up the core and brought it close up. It had a few white scratches on its surface.

"What monster did you get this from?"

"Some damn bird at early spirit fusion."

"Early spirit fusion!?" Wilhelm exclaimed.

"Killed it myself last year." Flem sat back down. "But since then I haven't been able to make up my mind in regards to what enchantment to put on it. I could sell it as is, but I'd see that as a waste, because with the right enchantment, this core could triple or quadruple in market value. Thankfully I didn't end up enchanting it."

"You killed it, too?" Wilhelm said. "Damn."

"I had to lie in wait for days before I finally found the right opportunity," Flem said. "I killed it in a single attack. Anyways that's enough out of me. Hurry up and give the core to Vivius."
Wilhelm forced down the other questions he had and offered the bird's core to Vivius.

The progress bar instantly went up to one hundred percent. When that happened, the writing in the air, the progress bar, and the black and white mist filling in the rune, all disappeared.

Wilhelm opened his eyes. "I activated the rune!"

Flem stood right up from his chair. "Good! Let's test it out."

Wilhelm was about to stand up from his chair when suddenly—

He held up his hand. "Wait! I feel something."

Flem and Elaine looked at him oddly.

Wilhelm's eyebrows creased together. The feeling was deep in the core of his soul, where the mizra dwelt. But it wasn't the mizra. It was something else.

As he looked inward, he discerned what it was. There was some sort of . . . compass. It was pointing him in a direction.

To a destination.

Right as he was about to explain what it was, Flem turned and stared through the wall behind him.

"Flem?" Wilhelm asked.

The warden stood there with a concentrated expression, not responding.

* * *​

At the same time . . .
In a grand hall, a young lady was attending a party, in the middle of conversation with a group of people.

In a brothel, an old man was getting frisky with a prostitute.

On a balcony, Eloy was sat in a chair, drinking wine and watching the burning lolaks.

In a rundown tavern, a man was in hushed conversation with a hooded person.

In a secret chamber underneath the palace, Kayle sat in meditation.

Beneath a snowy tree, a man was napping with a hat covering his face.

All of these people were at spirit fusion. Mages at this stage have awareness of the mana in the world around them. Movements, magical or otherwise, create fluctuations in the mana that permeates all of reality, equivalent to outgoing ripples in a body of water.

The bigger the movement, the bigger the ripple.

There came a seismic ripple that was too big to possibly ignore. It was the mana equivalent of an earthquake. Thus, every spirit fusion mage stopped what they were doing and turned in the same direction.

* * *​

"Something huge just moved," Flem said. "And this isn't some random avalanche that went off, either. It's like a volcano erupted."

Elaine jumped out of her chair. "It's the rune! The timing is too precise."

Flem placed a hand on his forehead. "It's coming from somewhere nearby Fort Blackreach. Every other spirit fusion in the city is sensing the same thing as me. No doubt, everyone's going to want to go over and investigate what it is."

Wilhelm suddenly turned around on the spot, until he was facing the same direction that the compass inside his soul was pointing towards. Recalling the map of Ereglast from memory, he realized that the compass was pointing right at Fort Blackreach, right where this disturbance had come from. This revelation left him frozen where he stood.

Flem noticed his odd behavior. "You felt that, too?"

"No, I didn't," Wilhelm said. "But after I activated the rune, this compass appeared inside of me. It's pointing right at where that disturbance came from."

Flem slowly nodded, taking in the piece of information but not knowing how to react.

Elaine searched the ground. Thoughts weren't exactly appearing in her mind. "What do we do?"

Flem looked at Elaine. "Actually, you're swearing a soul oath with me right now."

"What!?"

"I need to make sure you tell no one else of what has transpired here . . . or I'm afraid I won't be able to let you go, Elaine. And don't think of calling for help. This room is warded to block all remote communication. Make any sudden movements, and I will have to act."

Elaine stomped her foot on the ground. "Why would I tell anyone!? If my father found, he'd stop me from doing all this because doesn't want me to know anything about the rune on my neck, which is the exact opposite of what I want."

"I'm sorry, Elaine. But I can't take you for your word. I need total assurance."

Elaine sighed. "Fine. But make it quick. I need to get home as soon as I can."

A blue light appeared around Elaine's hand as she placed it against her chest. Flem came up with an oath on the fly, and Elaine recited each part of it after he did. At the end, Flem paused, making sure there wasn't any logical holes in the oath. Once he was sure that there weren't, and that he hadn't left anything out, he gave Elaine the go ahead to finish her oath. The blue light left Elaine's hand and disappeared into her soul.

If she ever spoke of anything that she agreed not to, her soul would tear apart. Instant death.

Standing at the side the whole time, Wilhelm left a mental note for himself: buy the soul oath rune at the next convenience. Then he remembered an important fact. That rune was incredibly expensive.

"Both of you can leave now," Flem said. "If I need to find any of you two, I will."

Elaine didn't spend any time dawdling and left the room.

Wilhelm was about to leave to, but Flem called out to him.

"And remember. Do not tell anyone about the rune or about any of this. Understand?"

Wilhelm turned back nodded. "I know."

CHAPTER 6
​

​

Wilhelm woke the next morning to a loud knocking on his door.

"Wilhelm," Gale called. "Wake up! You need to see this!"

A sleepy Wilhelm forced open his heavy eyes. There was no slit of light coming in from the gap between the curtain and the wall. A muted gray shade. The sun hadn't even risen yet.

Wilhelm got out bed anyways, yawning and slightly clumsy to put on his pants and shirt. A part of him worried. He knew it had to be related to the rune. No other way about it.

He opened the door and saw Gale standing there.

"What is it?" Wilhelm asked.

Gale gave him a poster. "Read this!"

Wilhelm started reading.

'LORD KAYLE ANNOUNCES EXPEDITION INTO THE WORLD BEYOND: BATTLE READY MAGES WANTED.'

Wilhelm read just that and immediately he got the rest of the picture, and he knew that he had to get on this expedition, no matter what.

Still, he kept reading.

'North-west of Fort Blackreach, a temple has risen from the ground. It's origins are unknown, and as of yet no one has managed to get inside, but it is highly likely, if not certain, that great treasure and opportunities await inside. The Promici, the crown's flying ship, will transport Lord Kayle and his heroic volunteers to the destination.'

His shoulders slumped in disappointment as he read what came next.

'APPLICANTS MUST BE AT MID FOUNDATION OR HIGHER TO BE ACCEPTED.'

"We're both at early foundation," Wilhelm said. "They're not going to take us."

Gale shook his head and pointed at a section at the bottom of the page, leading Wilhelm's gaze there.

'HIRING DECKHANDS. MAGES ONLY.'

Wilhelm sighed in defeat. "This seems like the only way, huh?"

"Unfortunately. "Gale smiled in excitement. "But It's not like they'll keep us on the ship the whole time. We could go and lay our eyes on the temple. And you never know. A tide of monsters might erupt out of the temple. It'll be every man for himself, and we'll be forced to fight with nothing but a bucket and a mop. Wouldn't that be cool?"

Wilhelm rolled his eyes. "This is high risk, no reward."

Gale looked at him weird. "You don't want to go?"

"No, I do," Wilhelm said. "I just . . ."

Should he explain? As close as they were, he had to think about it first. Besides, now wasn't the best time.

"Come on, let's go. If there's a line, we need to get there first and secure our spots."

"There would have to be," Gale said. "We have to be quick."

Once Wilhelm got himself properly dressed, he and Gale left the academy and blitzed there way through the city streets. As Wilhelm was much faster than Gale, they mutually agreed that he go ahead himself.

They were recruiting in the city plaza. They had tables set up. Each had a sign attached to it that indicated the role that someone would be signing up for. Healer, warden, battlemage, and deckhand, and a few other specialized roles.

It was really early, but the line for the battlemage table already spanned half of the plaza. Wilhelm couldn't help but pity whoever found themselves at the end of that long line.

In comparison, the line for the deckhand table was far more tame. There was a couple dozen people. Most were young looking. Wilhelm was able to line up with only a few surprised looks being sent his way. However, he was only in line for about a minute before a hand grabbed his shoulder.

Wilhelm looked up and found Flem standing over him.

Before he got the opportunity to say anything, Flem nodded him over. Wilhelm followed until Flem stopped at remote part of the plaza. There weren't many people walking by. Flem cast what seemed to be a barrier of silence, preventing any inside sound from escaping.

"Do you not want me to go on the expedition?" Wilhelm guessed.

Flem nodded. "That is exactly what I was going to tell you."

Wilhelm groaned. "Are you serious? I'm the person responsible for that temple coming out of the ground. I literally birthed that thing. Out of all people, I should be going on this expedition."
Flem rubbed a hand over the back of his head. Short hair. Black as snow.

"I'm trying to keep you safe," Flem said.

"I knew you would say something like that," Wilhelm said. "Way to stunt my growth."

Flem sighed. "A battle like you can't even imagine is going to break out at that temple. And I have that on good authority. If you go, you'll get caught up in the crossfires. You'll be risking your life."
Wilhelm put his hands out. "So what? I've always known that there will come a time where I will have to to risk my life in my pursuit of the magick. This is that time."

"But it's not!" Flem yelled.

Wilhelm turned disquieted.

"Look," Flem said. "I will make sure you get to go inside of the temple. I promise that. But the part before that is too dangerous for you. You won't even gain anything from it because you're not going to get involved. There's no point in risking it."

"Fine. Care to explain the specifics then, instead of being so vague?"

"There's going to be a rebellion," Flem admitted.

Wilhelm's heart skipped a beat. "A rebellion? What?"

"Yes," Flem said. "And I'm apart of it."

"You're going to try and kill Lord Kayle? He's at mid spirit fusion. How are you guys going to do that?"

"I can't disclose that information without having my soul torn apart. I swore an oath."

Wilhelm nodded in understanding.

"There's a chance I might die, so I'm leaving this to you." Flem reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter. There was a red wax seal on it, and on it was the imprint of a lolak. The edges were raised up.

Flem handed the letter to Wilhelm. "If I die, the magick seal that I've put on this letter will break open, and you'll be able to read what's inside."

"What's inside?" Wilhelm asked.

"A backup plan," Flem said. "Without me, things will become more difficult. This will make sure that you still have a way forward."

The letter felt heavier than it should have.

"Thanks," Wilhelm said.

Flem pat him on the shoulder. "I'm only looking out for you. Just make sure to come and say goodbye at the plaza before I set off."

"I won't forget," Wilhelm replied.

That was when he saw Gale. Flem noticed the direction of his gaze and spotted his friend.

"You want me to convince your friend not to go?"

Wilhelm was unsure.

"So you want him to just die or—"

"Convince him. If you could, please."

Flem went over and pulled Gale away and had a conversation with him. What he said, Wilhelm couldn't hear as Flem seemed to have put up another silence barrier. When his teacher was finished talking, he waved Wilhelm goodbye and left the plaza.

Gale walked over to Wilhelm with slumped shoulders and a frown on his face.

"Guess we're not going on the expedition, after all," he said.

Wilhelm could tell that his teacher had successfully persuaded him. He wondered what Flem had said to him, but he received the answer the next moment.

"I can't believe my dad's apart of a rebellion, and he didn't tell me."

"That is the last thing I expected to hear," Wilhelm replied.

Flem straight up telling him that him there was going to be a rebellion was the best form of deterrence. Who would be crazy enough to go? And since his father was apart of this rebellion, there wasn't a chance he would tell anyone.

"Me neither," Gale said. "I just hope he doesn't die."

The pair exited the plaza and headed back to the academy.

* * *​

After picking up some morning breakfast, they headed to the open training hall.

The ceiling was unreachable. So much space they could run freely like it was an open meadow. There were several other groups and lone students already there, training, shaping the elements. Immediately, other students came over and greeted them, forming a small circle. Wilhelm talked with them for some time. Once he and Gale cut through all the chit-chat, everyone returned to doing their own thing.

Having already told Gale about his new training regimen—no more than five minutes a day—Wilhelm proceeded to practice for a couple hours, getting lost in the heat, in the movement. No breaks.
When he stopped, he breathed even and calm, sweat covering his forehead. Gale was sitting on a bench with his back against the wall, chugging down water. As Wilhelm sat down, Gale passed him the leather bottle. Wilhelm drank the rest and wiped his lips and handed the bottle back.

"I really need to get the silence barrier rune," Wilhelm muttered.

"Why? It's not like we're plotting a—" Gale cut himself off, pursing his lips in an awkward expression.

"let's head back to my room," Wilhelm said. "We need to talk about what Flem said there earlier."

Gale silently agreed.

* * *​

Wilhelm sat at the chair at his desk. Gale sat on Wilhelm's bed with a pillow in his lap, making himself comfortable.

Wilhelm was silent for a minute. He chose his words carefully. "Gale. By any chance, is there any part of you that still wants to go on this expedition?"

"Are you serious?"

"I am."

Gale let out a long breath. "Yeah, I do. I want to go on this expedition. But you heard Flem. We'll get caught up in everything."

"I know," Wilhelm said. "But there's something I need to explain first, for you to understand my line of thinking."

Gale's eyebrows scrunched together. "What is it?"

Wilhelm explained everything. The rune. Elaine. The rune on her neck. How he used that as reference to complete his rune; Flem. How he gave him the resources to activate the rune. The temple erupting as soon as he activated the rune, and finally the compass in his soul.

At the end of it all, Gale spaced out for a while. He chuckled and shook his head.

"That must've been an adventure."

"It was—now that I think about. But as much as it pains me to say it, I can't put too much faith in my teacher."

Gale nodded in agreement.

"Because if he fails, someone might enter the temple before I do, and I can't let that happen."

"You really can't. Apparently no one has been able to open the door yet, and they can't even scratch it, which makes me think there's a chance that you're the only one who can get inside."

"That may be the case," Wilhelm said. "But I can't take any risks. I need total control over my destiny."

"I can't argue with that." Gale shrugged his shoulders. "So how are we going to sneak onto the ship? Otherwise, Flem might just throw you over the edge the second he sees you."

Wilhelm scratched his head. "We'll have to, won't we? I honestly don't know." Then he had an idea. "Elaine could help us."

"Elaine? How?"

"Remember what I told you? She snuck out her house to see me last night. If she can sneak out of the Vorus estate, she could help us sneak onto the ship."

Gale got excited. "She could! Is she going to come with us, too? I assume she would. That temple definitely holds some answers in regards to the rune on her neck. She'd be stupid not to go."

"I'll have to convince her to go, then. I reckon I could do that. I should go do that now. The ship leaves in the evening, doesn't it?"

"At sunset."
It was almost noon. Time was running thin.

"She'll need time to think before she makes a decision, so it's best if I go now."

He was about to stand when Gale called out his name.

"Wilhelm."

"Yeah?"

Gale looked down at the pillow for a moment. "I've never gotten the chance to say this, but I really look up to you, you know?"

Wilhelm was taken aback. "Thanks. I appreciate that."

"You're this fire shaping prodigy, you've created your own rune and caused some ancient building to erupt from the ground, the prettiest girl in the whole city said yes when you asked her out, and now you're sneaking on this expedition—which is all really cool." Gale frowned. "I don't mean to be a downer, but I feel like I'm lagging behind."

Wilhelm sighed. "I get what you mean. I've felt that way before. But you're saying this like you have no potential."

Gale turned silent and contemplated.

"All potential is unrealized. If you simply keep going, and you stay on the right path, you will succeed. These negative thoughts you're having are intrinsic, and you'll never get rid of them. But for the sake of your dream, it is your duty . . . to . . ."

Wilhelm slurred in his speech as the past flashed before his eyes.

A young woman with blonde hair. She stood with her boots in the snow, a hand outreached towards a falling snowflake. This image refused to leave his mind's eye.
Then there was a change.

The woman's arm turned into ash, followed by her head, torso, and legs. The edges of the image lit on fire like a piece of paper. The flames spread and closed in on the center, turning everything it touched a charred black.

Before the fire could reach the woman, Gale shook Wilhelm out of it.

"Are you okay?" his friend asked.

Wilhelm stared ahead. He looked down slowly and saw his hands were trembling.

"Another one of those flashbacks, man?"

Wilhelm closed his hands and forced the shaking to stop. Couldn't quite get his body to do that.

"Yeah," Wilhelm said. "Anyways, just . . . take this chance. The outcome will surprise you, I think."

Gale sat back down. "Yeah, you're right. Hey, would you ever want to tell me what's getting you zoned out all the time? If you tell me, I could help you. Maybe a new perspective would help you get over it."

"I'll think about it." Wilhelm stood up. "I need to find a way to contact Elaine. Her father has basically told me she's off limits. He'll probably kill me if he sees me at his doorstep."

"That is a problem."

Wilhelm stood and thought. After several minutes of giving suggestions that kept getting immediately turned down by the both of them, Wilhelm noticed a black shape moving in the side of his vision. Wilhelm looked over and saw a black cat sitting on his windowsill.

It had a red collar with a small, pocket-shaped note attached to it.

"Is that Elaine's cat!?" Wilhelm exclaimed.

The black cat raised its paw up and tapped on the glass.

"Looks like it," Gale said.

Wilhelm pulled up the window and let the cat in. It strolled through like it were royalty and made of gold. It jumped onto his desk, bounced off that, and came to a stop at his feet.

Wilhelm knelt down and patted the cat. He took the letter off its collar and opened it.

There was a folded piece of paper inside. There was also a quill. Its white body was covered in enchantments and had a crystal embedded into the end of it.

"Oh, oh!" Gale bounced on one foot to another. "It's one of those pens that can make the writing appear on a piece of paper that's pair bonded with the one you're using. They're super old fashioned."

"How do you know that?" Wilhelm asked.

"I saw one in an antique store once."

Wilhelm nodded and sat at his desk. The piece of paper was folded into quarters. He opened it up, laid the creased paper flat.

Surprise. There was already writing in the top left corner. The letters were red and seemed to be comprised of a magical mist that hovered just above the page.

'Hey, Wilhelm. It's me, Elaine. Make sure to use the pen enclosed within. Don't dip it ink. All you need to do is put the pen to the page. Whatever you will write down, I will see. P. S. The cat's name is Rick. It's a he.'

Gale, looking over Wilhelm's shoulder, read Elaine's message. "Rick, huh?"

The cat meowed and rubbed itself against Gale's leg.

"Wow. He's so effortlessly majestic," Gale said. He bent down and started playing with the cat.

As his friend got distracted, Wilhelm placed his hand on his chin and took a few moments to first gather his thoughts.

He put pen to paper.

"Hey, Elaine. You see this?"

His own writing appeared blue on the page.

Red text appeared a line underneath his own.

'I see you.' She drew a pair of expressive oval eyes after that, which made Wilhelm chuckle.

"Why are you messaging me like this? Are you not able to come out?"

'My dad put me on house arrest for sneaking out last night. I have two guards standing outside my doors, periodically opening the door to check if I'm here, every twenty or so minutes.'

"That sucks. Have you heard about the expedition?"

'Yeah. My dad has been running around everywhere. I don't know where he is, but he's busy. Busy enough to not come after you yet.'

A chill went down Wilhelm's spine.

"You told him you went to see me?"

'I didn't. Even an idiot could guess I went to see you.'

"Makes sense . . . so your father's going on the expedition?"

'Yes.'

"You know who else at spirit fusion is going?
"
'No clue. Lord Kayle's definitely going himself, though. And I wouldn't be surprised if the whole of House Irindal is coming along as well. Other than that, I'm unsure. Why? Are you going on the expedition?'

"Yeah, but Flem stopped me from signing up, so I'm going to have to sneak my way in."

'How the hell are you going to do that?'

"With your help, of course. I was actually going to go see you until the cat arrived. I'm wondering if you could come along? You could help us sneak in."

At this point, the entire page was covered in red and blue words. Wilhelm had to squeeze the latter half of the message in super small writing underneath Elaine's last message.

Suddenly, everything written on it disappeared.

Wilhelm was surprised.

'Just clearing the paper.'

"Oh . . . so do you want to come with me or not?"

Elaine didn't reply

"You have to come, Elaine. This temple has to contain the answer you're looking for. At least a clue. Just because your father doesn't want you to know, doesn't mean you should listen to his way of thinking. Your pain will never stop unless you defy him."

Still no response.

"Follow your heart."

Silence.

Wilhelm stared at what he had just wrote, a part of him cringing. It was his honest opinion, though.

Then, finally, Elaine wrote back.

'I'll come with you.'

Wilhelm raised his fist and clenched it, celebrating.

"Yes! You won't regret it."

'I hope so. I'm just worried that they'll figure out I snuck out really quick. I don't think they will, but. I have a method that I think will trick them for long enough.'

"What's this method of yours?"

'Look behind you.'

As she wrote that, Wilhelm heard Gale screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Oh my God! The cat was Elaine all along!"

His friend had his back pressed against the wall, staring at Elaine with a terrified expression.

Wilhelm's jaw dropped. "Elaine!?"

Elaine wore pink pajamas and stood with her hands hanging by her sides. She had this cute, innocent expression. "Meow."

Wilhelm and Gale blinked in surprise.

The former looked back at the paper.

'You see, Rick can turn into me. Before I go, I'll tell them that I'm tired, so I'll be having a nap. Rick can take my place in bed. They'll see him, and they won't suspect anything. But he's still a cat so if they try to talk to him, all he can do is meow. Not the best cover, but I think it'll do the job.'

Wilhelm looked back at Rick. He couldn't spot any difference between him and the real Elaine.

"How the hell did you teach a cat to turn into you?"

'I didn't. It's an awakened ability he gained upon becoming a two star monster.'

"Rick is a two star monster!?!?"

In human terms, Rick was equivalent to a mage at mid foundation.

It wasn't possible to predict a monster's rank by aura alone without a specific rune, which Wilhelm didn't have. Except for certain exotic species, the power of most monsters was concentrated within their bodies. Their essence and lifeforce.

'Yeah. He advanced a couple weeks ago, and my father is clueless. He has no idea that Rick can do this.'

After several more messages, mostly idle talk—nothing important—Wilhelm ironed out the exact details of their escapade. Where they would meet, the time, etcetera. Then he wished her good luck.
She said good luck back to him. Wilhelm put down his pen and stretched back in his chair.

The conversation ended there.

Well, at least it should have.

He was watching Gale play around with Rick, who had turned back into a cat again. As he turned back for a brief moment, he saw another message from Elaine.

'So . . . how are you doing? You think that, when we sneak onto the ship, we'll get spotted by someone and then we'll need to tie them up and gag them and shove them into a closet? I don't know. I'm bored. Please help. You even there, Wilhelm? SOS! In need of penpal!'

Wilhelm smiled and picked up his pen again.


AN:

Will post Part 2 soon.