Chapter 6

~a few days later~

I managed to convince my mother that I found a new power that I can use. She was skeptical of it but in the end, I showed that it wasn’t dangerous to me or anyone else except for my opponent. It didn’t suck my soul or suck the life force out other people. She was just scared that my body wouldn’t be able to reform itself if something ever happened to me since my whole body is made from dust now. But it was okay, I’m still Aurum and the new body helped me by giving me more physical strength. Since it's made of dust I can cluster dust together into a structure that will help me to strike harder or go faster. It'll really help to have a strong body in battle. She was relieved at the end and asked me which school did I want to go to.

“Clear Lake.”

“...Uh? But isn’t that one of the top high schools? With one of the hardest entry test?”

“Yeah, but I’m confident I can pass this test.”

“Oh… just be careful alright?

She pulled her hair back with a sigh of worry without thinking, revealing the horns on her head for the first time. She noticed what she had done and tried to hide them again. I put my hand out and stopped her.

“You don’t have to worry, I knew for a long time. You don’t have to hide it anymore.”

She looked at me with surprise.

"When did you know that I had horns?"

"Well, your hair didn't do the best job hiding it..."

Her eyes went teary and she cried about how she spent hours trying to puff up her hair to hide it from me.

"You don't have to hide anything from me, you can share stuff with me. I believe I'm ready to share secrets now." I said, holding my hands on hers to comfort her.

She looked down a bit as if she felt guilty about something.

"Mom, you seem to be hiding something from me. I told you, I can handle secrets."

She tensed up but sighed at the end and looked at me directly in the eye.

"There's... a secret that I kept from you for a long time. The secret will hurt, are you sure you want to hear it?"

"I'm sure that I'm ready to hear it."

"Aurum, I want you to know, I'm not your actual mother. I found you in the hand of a dark-cloaked man. It was a cold winter and he was on his way to the canal. I was in the town to pick up some seeds for my plant back in the garden until that man bumped into me. When I saw Him, I grew suspicious and I followed him. When he was on the deserted bridge I was in the shadow watching, only to find in horror that the man dropped you down into the canal. He left quickly and I jumped shortly after into the water to pick you up. you were a frail boy that was freezing numb in the cold. I managed to warm you up. I figured that you were abandoned, so I decided to name after the flower that I was planning to plant back at my home Auriel Plum. I cut a few words so that It'll fit better which ended up with Aurum. The plant could only grow during winter and it was used to create a calming cold scent. When you grew up I couldn't bring myself to tell you the truth."

I held my hand up next to her cheeks and put my forehead against her's.

"I may not know who my mother is but to me you were my mother."

She burst out crying and I comforted her as much as I can. When she finally calmed down we both agreed to go and make a final celebration for my departure.

//////////

I was standing on an empty plain with nothing in view but a single sign that said ‘Sky castle stop’ I looked up at the blue sky with a red suitcase. Then through the cloud came flying down a giant castle. It flew down and then right stopped above my head. Then a magic circle appeared under my feet and it ascending like a platform with me on top of it.

Once I got into a castle I was directed to a room inside for me. Since the school was so far, I’ll have a few days of traveling ahead of me on this flying castle. That means that this place is the room I’ll stay for the duration of the travel. I put my stuff in the room and locked the door behind me as I took a stroll. The entire castle was powered by a core at the bottom of the castle. It was created by an inventor that somehow removed a monster’s heart and placed it inside a container where he reanimated the heart. after it reanimated it started producing an immense amount of mana. This sort of invention immediately became widespread and it’s still being used today.

As I walked around I noticed a group of kids huddled together. They were all listening to an adult. I realize that they are probably kids on a field trip and the adult is probably a teacher. I looked around and noticed other people were listening. I also decided to sit back and listen. The teacher made the group of kids sit down and she started talking.

“This is Elienzah, the world as we know and live on. This world is filled with mana and as a result, magic exists. Many people learned how to harness the mana that they can create all sorts of unique magic. From talking to animals to lifting mountains, the different kind of powers seems endless. To add to this, when the churches lost the right to regulate magic lessons, other sources of miracles were introduced to the world. Ranging from alchemy, ruin crafting, to even the magic core that helps this castle to fly through the sky. It’s still developing but there is still much potential to it. Unfortunately magic comes with a cost. Because mana is everywhere, the ecosystem is also filled with mana. This causes animals to gain magical power that allows them to kill many people. Thought thanks to the knights and guards, we’re protected by most monsters thankfully.”

The lady will continue to teach her lessons and the students listened. I stood at the back listening to the lessons. The days flew past without knowing and I finally reached my destination. The place where I will take the test to determine whether or not I can make the cut to enter Clear Lake or not.

//////////

I walked among the group of kids, that chattered while they walked down the pathway. I looked up in the sky, it was a bright blue sky and I stared at it without much in mind. Then suddenly a shadow swooped above us and people started chattering and pointing at the black shape that flew over us. It was a red wyvern being ridden on a knight in red armor.

“Look, it is the red dragon knight!” one of the kids shouted. A generic name but it’s a blunt name that described him, except the ‘dragon’ part was more of an insult to most actual dragons. Wyverns, along with many others of its kind, are subspecies to dragons. They are not actual dragons.

The wyvern landed on an open field and the knight got down from the wyvern. He walked on the podium and stood beside other people in uniform standing side by side in a line at the back. A single man was standing behind a lectern and he was wearing a uniform that looked like to be part of the palace suit that had golden rope wrapping around him. He waited for all the kids to reach into the clearing before he started talking.

“Hello, my name is Owen Scott and I welcome you to Clear Lake. You’ll be spending your school year here but you’ll have to earn it by going through a series of tests. If you fail one test you don’t have to worry because you can still catch up on the other tests. You can use any method as long as they are not meant to kill. Teaming is allowed but there can be no more than three people no extras. Although any methods are allowed, we kindly ask of you to play fair games as some moves might decrease your credibility to enter the school. These adults shall oversee the tests to make sure you're not cheating, along with today's special guest, Red Dragon Knight! Although the organizers didn’t want an actual dragon on the field so they forced him on a wyvern instead.”

I nodded at the fact, at least the R.D Knight wasn’t a scammer of some sort. He just wasn’t allowed to bring an actual dragon. After all, the dragon has a much bigger figure and can be a danger to students if it emits too much magic. Although I can't blame the organizers. Monster taming is actually extremely new, to the point that getting a horned rabbit as a pet is almost exciting. that man had already tamed a dragon, getting him on a wyvern was already enough to impress people. I wonder what's his story with his dragon.

While we waited for teachers to take us to the first test, I was running around in the crowd trying to find someone. Come-on, where is she? I couldn’t find her in the crowd of people. I start rubbing my fingers on my temples and started thinking. My mind was still extremely blurry but I was thinking real hard if I was her where will I want to be. She uses to tell me that she didn’t like meddling with people when she was small because of the discrimination of her own family despite having a higher mana capacity. So she ended up avoiding contact with other people. Wait, if she really does try to avoid contact, wouldn’t she be far back?

I turned and started pushing past people slowly reaching the past the back of the crowd. There were a few trees at the back with some students sitting with their backs against them. I didn’t mind them and walked around searching for her. Then I spotted her and my heart was about to leap until it got squished down my annoyance. She was surrounded by other boys and I heard some of them talking.

“What are you doing here, you shouldn’t be here you hybrid.” A boy stepped closer to her and she clenched her fist tighter behind her back. The boy smiled and tried to approach her even more.

“You’re just another product of your father who spared his pity to a woman but the women simply fled and left you. Although you’re pretty so I’m willing to-”

“Hey, you guys don’t mind leaving her alone?” The boys turned their heads when they heard my voice. The one with blond hair and yellow eyes that seemed to be the leader stepped forward.

“What do you want?” he replied. It was clear he looked down on me and I stood my ground with my arms crossed.

“I want you.” I pointed my finger at his face.

“To stop bothering people with your useless chant and get out.”

The boy looked at each other and laughed.

“Do you realize who you're trying to talk too?”

“Don’t know don’t care. Now get out of my face.” I replied and pointed my thumbs behind me.

They laughed before walking away from her, but when they reached me the one with blond hair whispered into my ear,

“You’ll regret talking to me so nonchalantly.” I just shrugged

“Then I’ll be waiting for you,” I answered and they left us.

I looked back at the girl. She had long black hair but the light that reflected in it gave a light blue color instead. Her eyes also Green-blue. She had those blue color because of the slight saturation of mana that spread in her body, but it made her beautiful.

I approached her awkwardly as I waved my hand.

“Well, hi. My name is Aurum, what is your name?” She looked at me with a kind of gaze that question whether I’m an enemy trying to trick her or a person trying to be her friend. Then a voice resounded in our head.

“Students, We want to start lining up behind the line, your first test will be starting.” My arms drooped a bit because our conversation was interrupted but as she passed me she told me,

“Llya, my name is Llya.” I smiled a bit and followed her to the starting line.

A person stood right in front of the starting line. He clapped his head a few time and then the group of students fell to silence. Then there’s a booming voice in all of our heads. Her lips didn’t move but she still made gestures with her hand.

“The first test will be a race through the forest. There will be traps since just running in the forest is too simple. Some will be pits, others will be traps that will transport you to a different world where you’ll face challenges. Don’t worry these worlds are created by our magic expert and these worlds can always be collapsed in case of emergency and such. If you do succeed these challenges you’ll be transported further along the track. Fail and you'll continue to be entrapped in the world. Note that time might flow differently from the outside world. Any sort of magic can be used and you’re allowed to craft items such as potions, ruins, and other objects. The space behind the start line is counted as the safe zone. You’re allowed to stay behind that line to build your items, but you’re not allowed to use offensive magic within this zone. But past this line, you’re allowed to use offensive magic on other people who have crossed the line. The race shall be starting in a few minutes, you can start making your preparation. People who don't want to race and such, please follow me to another area.” She then left with a group of people following her to another zone.

Everyone started preparing themselves for the race. People started buffing themselves with speed magic and others sat down with kits and started to brew potions/craft other items. The ones who thought they were smart are starting to cast a teleportation spell. People who noticed are trying to team up with those people. I shook my head looking at them since it may as well be a bad idea. I looked around and found Llya again close to the start of the line instead. There’s a barrier placed to stop people from having a head start.

As I got close to her I called her out “Hey do you wanna team up?” She turned and looked at me then shrugged and asked

“Do you know any teleportation spells?”

“I know a spell called {slip away} but I don’t believe it’s a good idea,” I responded shaking my head.

She looked at me with a questioning gaze as to why I thought so. I placed the spatial magic star I had, crouched down and peered at the forest. That allowed me to see the entrance of the worlds

“We’ll you see when you cast a teleportation spell, the spell is usually supposed to transport you to the designated location. But I’m sure that the examiner thought of that. These small worlds aren’t a joke you can pass by. If you attempt to teleport through them you’ll be pulled into the world instead. Of course, it’s not impossible to teleport through the whole race. But if you can, you probably deserve it.” I explained. She nodded her and looked at the forest.

“So what is your plan then?” she asked.

“If we want to reach there record time we need to jump into these worlds. When we get in, we go and complete the challenge and it’ll launch us further into the race. It’ll be much faster than running through the whole course and dodging the traps.” I pointed at an entrance to the world.

“I don’t know if you can see it but I can see the entrance and the intensity of the mana that is pouring out. Since there’s more mana, then the challenge behind the must be harder than the other worlds. I’m guessing since the challenges will be harder, it will transport us further.” I looked at Llya with to see if she understood. She looked back at me and nodded.

"I can sense the mana but I can't pinpoint the exact location. Thanks for pointing it out." I clapped my hands together and stood up straight.

“Great, now that we have established a somewhat good plan all we have to be careful of now are our opponent.” I looked back behind me and spotted the boys that were harassing Llya moments ago.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of them,” Llya told me. I looked at her with a pleading look.

“But can I at least beat up the blonde one?” She looked at me with a bit of surprise then smirked.

“Well, I also have a grudge against him, how about we take care of his friend and then we go to town on him?” I smiled and she nodded with one too. Then the voice started counting down the final seconds.

“Llya, what’s your magic by the way? Mine’s being able to transform my body into a substance called dust which can take into different forms. I can use those dust to strengthen my body so I have better strength than the normal person. I can also use those dust to create weapons and I can use a lot of different kinds of magic.”

“Mine’s infusing mana into object or body to empower them. Unfortunately, sometimes I infuse too much mana they end up breaking. Although I can’t say the same for my body, I can infuse a lot of mana into my limbs but I’ll feel numb. Of course, you don't have to worry, I can still take care of the boys.” she replied with confidence.

I nodded. She still doesn't know what is the true form of her power, in fact, I don’t know if it had taken shape yet. But it doesn't matter. Right now it is all it matters.

“Thanks for telling me. Now let’s win this race.” She saw my smile and did the same. I looked back at the entrance of the temporary world, the dust that formed my leg tensed up into a coil-like structure. For Llya, her mana flooded into her leg. We were both ready, then the countdown hit zero, the barrier went down and we both sprung with full speed for the entrance of the temporary world.