Book 2: Chapter 10

The Steeled Feathered Pheasant looked towards Lupin’s fleeing back with one of its heads and looked to the group of four still recovering from its roar with its other head. It then turned tail and ran after Lupin, its body full of vibrant color and soft, silky feathers much unlike the steel feathers it was supposed to have. The Steeled Feathered Pheasant was also only supposed to have one head but this creature had two, which made it seem like a whole other species. But this magical beast was in fact, a Steeled Feathered Pheasant, or what Brutus called ‘an ancient Steeled Feathered Pheasant’.

The title of ‘ancient’ is added to a magical beast that has undergone a complete metamorphosis, shedding their old self to reform a stronger self. To become ‘ancient’ the magical beast usually have lived for a long amount of time and suffered through countless tribulations. The chances of a magical beast becoming ancient were so pitifully low, however, so not many records were kept on the topic and not many knew about ancient magical beasts.

Brutus was well read and had great memory, even among other mages older than him; therefore, Brutus could recall the information on ancient magical beasts that he had read about from so long ago. Although he hadn’t heard of a Steeled Feathered Pheasant becoming ancient, he had guessed that this was the case so he blurted out what he thought. And for better or worse, it turned out Brutus’ hunch was right.

An ancient magical beast was so rare that it was easier to see a dragon than to see an ancient beast and now there were two of them?!

As soon as the first ancient Steeled Feathered Pheasant took of, the second one stepped out of the den and this one shocked the recovering group of Rebeka, Brutus, Turtin, and Luhag even more than the first one.

This Steeled Feathered Pheasant had only one head, as it should, but half of its feathers was of diamond and half was of vibrant coloured, as if they were in the process of changing. When the group saw this Steeled Feathered Pheasant, they couldn’t help but to admire its beauty despite the precarious situation they were in. It seemed they were instinctively drawn into this state of awe.

As the group was caught admiring the creature they didn’t even notice that their heads had fallen off their bodies. They didn’t feel any pain and the memory of the beautiful Steeled Feathered Pheasant was the last thing they could remember before everything grew quiet, dark and still.

The Steeled Feathered Pheasant shook its head, almost as if it was sad it had to kill the teenagers, then it walked back into its den knowing that it could no longer stay there.

***

In that moment, in the headmaster’s chambers in Gale Saints Academy, the headmaster was startled by a quiet cracking sound. Headmaster Oscar’s eyes widened as he looked towards the two glowing, spherical balls on his desk. To his horror, one of the balls was split open from the middle with a jagged line running through its core.

“Rebeka has died?!” Headmaster Oscar couldn’t believe his eyes, but the magical equipment wouldn’t lie. Rebeka really was dead and that meant Headmaster Oscar would now face the wrath of the Calliat family unless he could find her killer.

Quickly, holding the two broken pieces, Headmaster Oscar discerned the location of Rebeka’s death. When he found out the spot was in Emerald Forest, he frowned: “The location was not too deep into the forest so there shouldn’t be any magical beast yet. Could it be that she was ambushed by other mages?”

Then, as if thinking of something, Headmaster Oscar quickly viewed the other spherical ball on his desk. This was the most talented student to have ever come to Gale Saints Academy and was a student that Oscar deeply cared about. Similar to Rebeka, he had even used a rank 4 magical equipment to monitor this student’s location at all times and even gave the student a rank 4 magical defensive robe.

When Headmaster Oscar found out where his treasured student was, his frown deepened even further and his body shattered the glass pane as he bursted out of the window and into the air, flying towards Emerald Forest.

“Lupin, wait for me!” Oscar increased his flying speed as he shot through the air.

***

At that same moment in Emerald Forest, Lupin could feel the intensity of the ancient Steeled Feathered Pheasant’s stare. Occasionally it would roar with fervour, making Lupin’s hair stand on its ends. The roar no longer had such a devastating impact on him because he was prepared but Lupin was still concerned about those roars. They seemed to be playful roars; it was almost like the ancient Steeled Feathered Pheasant was playing with him and could kill him at any time.

Lupin gnashed his teeth in anger and pulled out a small spherical orb, crushing it with his hand. “Am I really going to die here?” he thought and refused to believe it. He was a genius! He had a middle-grade elemental body and at the age of 16 he was almost a Rank 3 mage. This was much better than even Rebeka who had come from a renowned mage family. He himself came from a declining, poor mage family and was the only hope for his family’s revival so he couldn’t die. “I won’t die!” Lupin said to himself, hoping the Headmaster had receive his distress signal.

That was when Lupin saw hope. It was another person. There was actually another person here!

“Help!” Lupin called out. “Help me!”

The figure turned to look back and when Lupin saw that the figure was just a kid, his spirits fell. A kid couldn’t help him at all. Unless…

A devious plot quickly inserted itself into Lupin’s mind and he sped up towards the figure who was moving at constant but slow speed.

“You’re going to buy me some time,” Lupin thought, smiling inside.

***

When Cyil saw a boy running straight towards him, he frowned. He was surprised to see another person here but quickly caught on to what was happening when he saw the creature chasing the boy. Cyil instantly knew what the boy wanted to do and he could feel the boy’s malicious intent. Although Cyil knew all of that, he could do nothing about it because he was moving too slow and going any faster would only result in him slipping or tripping.

The boy was shouting all sorts of pleads that Cyil left unanswered. When the boy was within 10 feet of Cyil, a conflux of elemental particles amoglorated and was flung Cyil’s way.

Wind Blade!

The slightly green Wind Blade was aimed at Cyil’s legs. The boy didn’t want to kill him right away but to handicap him and leave him for that two-headed beast that was gaining on the both of them.

“This punk,” Cyil growled and jumped, dodging the Wind Blade but slipping on a tree root as his foot landed. Cyil tumbled forward with the momentum of his jump and force of his running. When he regained his ground, he could see the boy running past him.

Cyil wanted to punch him but an excited roar not even from 20 yards away disrupted these thoughts. Cyil decided he could get back at the boy after he got away from that creature. Cyil made a quick decision and choose not to follow the boy but to run in a different direction. Cyil knew he couldn’t outrun the boy and hoped that the beast would chase after the boy, instead of him.

As Cyil ran for his life, he noticed that the occasional roars were getting further and further away, like the thunder of a departing storm. “It really didn’t come after me?” Cyil sighed. Narrowly dodging that bizarre incident Cyil didn’t let up his guard but kept his steady running pace, making his way out of the forest. If that beast came back then he would definitely get eaten up and that was much worse than being late for the start of the new term.

Cyil was so focused on running that he didn’t realize when the sounds of birds and insects returned. He also didn’t notice that the trees now grew further apart from one another compared to before. Cyil only came to when he saw that up ahead there were no more trees, but instead a vast plains of rolling hills! He could even see a road wedged between two small hills.

“I’m finally out!” Cyil shouted in glee and with a spurt of energy exited the forest’s reach.

***

Just as Cyil was close to getting out of the forest, Headmaster Oscar reached Lupin’s lifeless body. Not even a minute into his flight he had received a distress signal from Lupin. Headmaster Oscar was already flying at top speed but was still two hours away! No matter how he willed it he couldn’t move any faster. “If only I had a scroll with the spell Teleport!” Headmaster Oscar thought. Alas, such a scroll would be too expensive for him even if he pooled together all of his resources. With only hope fueling him, Headmaster oscar grit his teeth and continued to fly for another 15 minutes before the crystal he was carrying also cracked apart, falling into even more pieces than the other one.

When this happened, tears flowed down Headmaster Oscar’s face like rain from the monsoon, unending and relentless. Headmaster Oscar did not cry when his parents died nor did he cry when his wife died, but he cried now. He had no children and although Lupin wasn’t his flesh and blood, he treated Lupin like his own. Oscar was reaching the end of his life span and he hadn’t accomplished much as a mage. He was a Rank 5 level 2 Wind Mage with a low-grade elemental body. In his youth he dreamed of becoming a Rank 9 or even Rank 10 mage, but his talent wasn’t enough nor did he have the resources to continue to climb up the ranks. Thus, he had somehow scrapped up enough resources to start up an academy. Oscar could have started his own guild but he disliked the way a guild operated and instead wanted to help nurture the young and have them fulfill his dream of reaching Rank 9 as a mage.

Gale Saints Academy had been open for only 80 years, but its reputation was already quite good for nurturing talented youths. The people who graduated from Gale Saints Academy were able to have a decent impact in whichever guild they decided to join and all those who graduated were less than 30 years of age.

Although reaching Rank 3 as a mage before the age of 30 seems unimpressive, it was actually enough to call oneself a genius. The average age for mages to reach Rank 3 was anywhere from 40-80 years, and if the mage couldn’t break through in that time then they probably wouldn’t be able to for the rest of their lives.

In fact, Gale Saints Academy’s accomplishment was so well known that it even drove a nearby prestigious mage family to send them their treasured daughter for tutoring…

Headmaster Oscar cradled Lupins torso and apologized for not making it there in time. He then vowed to track down the killer and eliminate it. Oscar could make out from the surroundings that what killed Lupin was a magical beast. He then guessed that whatever killed Lupin also killed Rebeka and thinking up to this part, he quickly gathered himself and left Lupin’s torso on the ground. He didn’t even bother burying Lupin and after checking to see if Lupin had anything of value left on his body, Oscar quickly flew in the direction of Rebeka’s death.

Oscar realized that he had been too caught up in his emotions and hadn’t been thinking clearly. Lupin was already dead, and there was nothing he could do to bring him back so now he should focus on the preserving Gale Saints Academy! Because if he couldn’t provide a satisfactory explanation for the Calliat family then there may very well be no more Gale Saints Academy by the time the sun rises.

As he flew, Headmaster Oscar stretched out his senses to find the killer but he came up with nothing. Not even five minutes later, he reached the spot. Looking around the clearing he was shocked at the size of the den. “What creature would be so big and live so close to the edge of Emerald Forest?” he thought and even though he couldn’t sense any magical creatures nearby, he now walked around with more caution.

When Headmaster Oscar was within 30 feet of the den, he waved his sleeve and a surge of energy, similar to Lupin’s but much stronger, flew out and blew the giant den apart. Without batting an eye Oscar continued the assault.

Wind Blade!

Wind Blade Wind Blade Wind Blade…

Only after the whole den was in rumbles did Headmaster Oscar stop. He had been wary the whole time and wanted to force whatever was in the den to come out, but when nothing came out he continued attacking out of frustration.

Now that he was sure the magical beasts were not hiding in there or anywhere near, he finally walked over to the four bodies that no longer had their heads. Looking at the peaceful expressions on all of their faces, Headmaster Oscar didn’t know what to make of their deaths. He didn’t know what magical beast had killed them but he was sure that it was strong enough to cleanly decapitate four Rank 2 and up mages.

Bending down to examine the pendant on Rebeka’s neck, Headmaster Oscar’s eyes shot open. The grade 6 defensive equipment that was given to Rebeka by the Calliat family had not even activated. It was in perfect condition, meaning Rebeka did not use it to protect herself from the magical beast at all!

Headmaster Oscar could not make heads or tails out of this because Lupin’s grade 4 defensive equipment was torn to shred and rendered unusable while Rebeka’s was fine. He thought about it for a bit and could only come to the conclusion that Rebeka and the four were killed instantly through a sneak attack of some sort while Lupin had been able to escape and resist.

Slightly dreading the killer and not wanting to delay, Headmaster Oscar collected Rebeka’s head and body and flew out of Emerald Forest back to Gale Saints Academy.

When he reached the edge of the forest, he could see down below a kid running out from the forest, too. There were no towns nearby and no signs of any traveling merchants, mercenaries or groups. All alone was a kid by himself. “Isn’t this odd?” Oscar thought to himself and inspected the kid with his sense. When Oscar found that he couldn’t sense the boy’s presence or anything about him via his sense Oscar was greatly shocked. Only someone whose mage ranking was higher than his or who excelled in covering up their aura/presence would be able to hide from him. But this boy looked to be only 12!

Oscars instantly shot down towards the boy, curious at how he was escaping his detection sense. As he drew closer he noticed that the kid was wearing a uniform and Oscar could see that the academy badge said Noxiams Academy. When Oscar saw that the boy was a mage from a nearby academy, devious thoughts and plots had already began to form in his mind. What started off as curiosity quickly turned into a malicious plan.

By now, the boy had also noticed Oscar and stopped to stare. The boy’s face was the epitome of confusion and he seemed to nearly wet his pants.

Oscar laughed at the sight of the boy and stopped when he was 5 feet away, hovering in the air and looking down.

“Boy,” he started off slowly, certain this wasn’t some powerful hidden expert playing dress-up. “I’m going to need you to come with me.”