Book 2: Chapter 11

Cyil shook his head as he eyed the old man carrying with him a headless body. “Who in their right mind would go with you?!” Cyil thought to himself, but continued to act the part of a terrified young mage.

When the old man saw that Cyil was looking at Rebeka’s dead body, he let out a laugh at his carelessness as his grin turned into a twisted smile. “No need for formalities now, I suppose. You either come with me obediently or I kill you.”

Cyil was shocked at how fast the old man’s attitude changed, but he hadn’t expected a person who carried around a headless body to be anyone good. His mind was hard at work trying to come up with a plan of escape, Cyil said, “Senior, we have no grievances so why must you kill me? Although I am a genius student at Noxiams Academy, I have none of my wealth on me. I’ve left everything back at Noxiams. If you are not convinced, feel free to check.”

Cyil raised his arms up in defeat and showed no signs of resisting. Cyil had lied in saying he was a genius at Noxiams with the hope that the old man would back off, but he didn’t know that Noxiams Academy was a pitifully weak academy with poor backings; perhaps someone might think twice about offending an academy like Gale Saints Academy, but not Noxiams Academy.

The old man laughed when he heard what Cyil had said. “Any and all treasures you have wouldn’t be worth a single one of my farts. I also don’t care if you’re a genius from Noxiams Academy. Even if you are Noxiam’s headmaster herself, I would still have my way!”

The domineering tone from the old man made Cyil frown. “Guess that doesn’t work.” Cyil cursed inside.

“Senior, may I ask, what do you want with me?” Cyil forced himself to smile and politely address the old man who had just threatened to kill him. Cyil didn’t notice it himself, but he was surprisingly calm. This state of mind allowed him to think clearly and helped to control any wild surges of emotions like fear, anger, sadness, etc.

“Hmm,” the old man was surprised at Cyil’s relaxed attitude. “What’s wrong with you, kid?” the old man asked as he dropped to the ground and began to walk towards Cyil.

“What do you mean, Senior?” Cyil now discarded his act of being scared and stood his ground as he stared the old man in the eyes.

The old man saw the clear look in Cyil’s eyes. These were eyes that were not afraid, but curious and smart. These were eyes he had seen before. They were eyes of heroes or of foolish, crazy people. These were eyes he yearned for, but could never have; so those with these sorts of eyes pissed him off the most. “You’ve got some real balls, don’t you kid?” The old man was now face to face with Cyil, his aged breath polluting the air.

Cyil tried to ignore the smelly breath, but its stench was too potent and he couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose.

When the old man saw Cyil’s action, his eyes narrowed and he didn’t hesitate to swipe his hand down towards Cyil’s balls of steel. In one fell swoop, like a typhoon uprooting boulders from the earth, Cyil felt a pain so violent down in his nether that he couldn’t even scream.

This pain was the worst Cyil had ever felt and he writhed on the ground with tears running down his face. The pain should have knocked him out but alas, his strong soul kept him awake and clear headed, keeping the level of pain at 100%. Cyil don’t know how long he withstood the pain for, but after what seemed like an eternity, the darkness that he so hated welcomed him again with a warm embrace.

The old man had in his hand two of a male’s most precious orbs. He swirled the two balls around in his hand, as if they were meditating balls, and looked on as the boy bloodied the ground by rolling around.

He looked on with apathetic eyes and with a tint of admiration for the boy’s endurance. Reasonably, he should have fainted right away, but he continued to stay awake for over ten minutes. When the boy’s struggling calmed, the old man walked up to the boy and took out a glass jar from his pocket. He then applied some of the creamy black slime onto the wound of the boy. Although this wouldn’t help the boy recover his balls, it would stop the wound from bleeding and mend the wound.

After the old man finished applying the cream, he put away the glass jar and began to search around Cyil’s body. He did not find anything of use on Cyil’s body. In fact, Cyil was so poor he didn’t even have a single elemental crystal! The old man didn’t expect Cyil to be so poor and scoffed.

The old man then scanned Cyil’s elemental body and was surprised to find that Cyil had reached Rank 2 level 2 as a mage with just a low-grade elemental body. This speed could be considered fast even among those of the same age. Nonetheless, it still wasn’t an abnormal rank to reach and the old man continued to search for the trick Cyil used to hide his presence from him. After prodding about for a while the old man gave up and decided to ask Cyil himself when he woke up. Of course, he was prepared to ‘convince’ Cyil some more should he withhold information.

“I’d better hurry back,” the old man said and carried Cyil with one of his scrawny arms and Rebeka with his other one as he flew into the air and to the horizon.

***

Headmaster Oscar, didn’t notice it, but someone had been eyeing his every actions from the start. Many times that person was about to kill Headmaster Oscar, but would retract their hand at the last moment. A simple flick of their finger would be enough to end Headmaster Oscar’s life, but the person still managed to stay their hand, at least, for now.

***

Cyil awoke to the sound of grating steel against the rocky, cold, and hard ground. Cyil tried to get up, but a pain shot from between his legs and he groaned, laying back down on the ground.

Staring up at the ceiling that was slowly being flooded by the light from the corridor, Cyil thought back to what happened. He remembered everything clearly and he felt a seething anger bubble up inside of him. He had a great desire to kill that old man. Cyil remembered what Baccaus had said about not killing, but he also remembered what Baccaus had told him when they last parted. Baccaus had said nothing was absolute, so killing would be okay in some instances, right? Cyil thought Baccaus would absolutely agree with him and that assurance fueled his anger.

As the anger began to blossom in Cyil’s mind, he felt a soothing breeze flow through his entire body, calming it. Cyil was still angry, but he realized many things at once. The most blaring thing was that he was too weak to take revenge. The second thing was that anger is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be. The third thing was that whatever it was that happened from now on, he had to stay alive. The fourth thing was that he couldn’t rely on his father who he could not remember or Baccaus or anyone else to help him; he only had himself to rely on. Many other realizations that Cyil took as the cruel truth of Nakrul calmly planted themselves deep within his soul. This setback that was meant to instill a deep terror in Cyil, not only made him more resolved to get stronger and more mature, but created an enemy that Headmaster Oscar could not even imagine.

*Bang*

The door slammed against the stone wall and a shadow interrupted the light on the ceiling. “On your feet! The Calliat family is here to deal with you. You filthy animal. I wish I could kill you myself.” The voice was grating and filled with more sadness than anger.

Cyil crawled to his knees and tried to get up. He decided that it was best to just go along with whatever was happening. By doing so, he would hope to stay alive so that he could right this wrong.

As Cyil continued to struggle to his feet, the shadow moved from the light and kicked him in the gut. The kick turned Cyil over and onto his back. Cyil grabbed his ribs and could see that the shadow belonged to a middle aged man who had an ordinary everyday face. The brim of the man’s eyes were red and his untrimmed hair added to his crazy look. Cyil remembered the man’s face and said nothing. He clenched his teeth and used the stone wall as a support to stand up.

This time, the man only stared and didn’t kick Cyil.

When Cyil finally managed to stand and started to move, every baby step he took towards the door was filled with great pain. Cyil kept his head lowered, but he could feel the presence of three other people standing in the corridor of the door. Cyil wasn’t optimistic about his chances of dealing with four people at once, even when he was in peak condition. Plus he hardly had any battle experience, except for play fighting with wooden swords back in Fayburn. He only had Mahoj’s memories and the battle scenes from Baccaus’ and Kara’s fight to reference. Hence, Cyil stayed quiet and moved along down the long corridor until they reached a door from which Cyil could hear loud voices discussing things with fervor.

Then without much suspense the door was pushed open by one of the guards and Cyil was pushed forward to meet his fate.