CHAPTER 7: TWO FACED

Alric, having four days before the start of classes, thought it was the perfect time for him to start putting his pieces on the board.

Alric left the academy’s confines and placed his x-ray crystal at the center of his forehead and cloaked himself in a cloak of shadows. He headed towards the main shopping district of the city which was a fair distance from the academy’s grounds.

He walked through the thick crowds of the shopping area, passing many tents and salesmen. Seeing creatures of different races at first startled Alric.

Alric tugged the cloak he wore further down his face as he stepped into a tent to the farthest side of the marketplace.

“Welcome kind guest, it is only ten silver coins to appraise any item you may have.”

The store owner was a tall elf. His pointed ears and unisex appearance were the most common traits of the elves.

Alric nodded and took from his dimensional ring ten items and laid them before the appraisal expert.

The elves who were always known to be sensitive to dark magic jumped a little feeling the dark energy that emitted from the young lad with a blurred face.

In his profession it was not uncommon for persons to steal items and carry them in to appraise while hiding their identities to circumvent the law.

He nodded his head and looked over at the ten items that laid on the floor.

The first three items were swords. The elf placed his hand over the first sword and murmured a chant then a green light covered the sword.

When the light subsided the runes within the sword glowed and a colored network of veins seemed to cover the sword.

“A fine sword you have procured here. This sword is more suited to a paladin. It’s ability allows it to speed up the regeneration of inner mana and allows it to be let out even more quickly.

Also there is a built-in function that allows it to heal the wielder by drinking the blood of its enemies.”

Alric nodded his head at the elfs explanation. He was mystified by the magic of the elf.

For Alric himself to be able to cast the spell would have been easy, however to understand the lights it produced and the inner working of the spell would take another lifetime.

The elf, after admiring the craftsmanship of the weapon, moved on to the next.

“This one here is more straightforward, it's a poison type sword. It's filled with poison within every slash, and rots flesh as it slices through.

Its handle contains an antidote to its poison.”

The elf, after understanding the rarity of the items the child possessed, tried to get a closer look at his identity.

The elf glanced at the child’s face while he was busy observing his magic. However the closer he looked the blurrier the boy’s face appeared. He thought that it must have been some form of darkness or shadow mage.

“This last one here is the most intriguing of the lot. It is a sword that adapts to the element that it absorbs the most, and right now it reeks of a fowl shadow magic. I would say this one is definitely your personal weapon.”

The elf assumed as much seeing at the same fowl shadow magic was already surrounding his customer. Alric made a slight agreeing nod and the elf smiled thinking his guess was on the mark.

Contrary to his thoughts however the sword was last used almost two years ago and since then has been in a dimensional ring. The only reason the energy could still be felt was because the last enemy that it found was the powerful adult kludde.

Ironically now, since Alric had absorbed the Emperor Kludde he had that same mana within himself. But Alric was never about to explain this to the stranger.

the elf continued to explain the other sword that he held.

“It allows its wielder to have greater control over the designated element. There also seems to be a hidden concentration feature, meaning it can easily compress the designated element as well.”

The elf smirked proudly as he explained the features of each item.

The remaining items were two rings, two pairs of gauntlets and one necklace. Alric kept the dark sword at his waist and returned the items to his dimensional space and then threw two gold coins at the elf.

“I was never here”, the elf nodded in agreement as he received the coins.

Alric was elated on the inside. He wanted to smile from ear to ear, this was a good haul. Each item was enchanted and could be sold for a chest of gold. The team that tried to kill an emperor beast certainly did come prepared, and he had twenty more items left to appraise.

Alric exited the shop and the night air surprised him. The appraisal had taken over an hour.

He felt that the appraiser may have purposely taken long however he had no evidence.

As Alric walked his kludde tattoo alerted him. Two men were following him. Alric heightened his senses, he could smell blood on them and see the slight grin on their faces.

They followed him to the slumps and when Alric entered an alleyway that was dark and secluded they came prancing in with daggers in hand grinning.

“Okay mister, we know you have some rare treasures holding up.

You hand them over and we promise nothing will happen to that tiny little body.”

The two oversized men's hackles were cut short when an unknown force pulled them to the unknown man and then pinned them to the wall. They tried to scream however the alleyway was already covered in shadow magic that cancelled out all sound.

“I have a few questions and you two will answer me.” The blurred face grinned as the darkness fully enveloped them.

When the shadows fell from around the three the blurred man disappeared, one of the two men was already headless while the other was visibly shaking and pale with fright.

-

The night he came started like any other. We had just given our weekly report to the boss and we drank as we celebrated our ill gotten gains for the past week.

That was until the shadows came crawling into our warehouse. At first we thought it was the city guards, but we were a small gang, just budding and we weren’t on their radar yet.

The four shadow wolves had eyes so deep they glowed in the darkness of their bodies. They ran around tearing grown men to bits. It all seemed like just a game of tag for them, but for the rest of us it was a horror house.

This was just the start.

The boss was an advanced level mage, the moment the wolves killed the first man he started chanting and fired a beam of ice which instantly froze the shadow wolf.

The moment he did a foul dark energy erupted and he appeared. His face was a complete blur, his shadow magic covered his body only his black hair could be clearly seen.

The blur jumped between the boss and the men, and in an instant the men and objects inside the warehouse started to … fall.. sideways?

It was the oddest of phenomena we had ever experienced. The objects inside the warehouse crashed against its walls while the men tumbled and rolled towards the walls. The boss however had already frozen his feet to the floor and prevented himself from moving.

Alric drew his Shadow scourge and pointed it at the boss before declaring.

“This is my gang now.”

The man scoffed and spat at him. Alric swung his sword but to his surprise the man in charge quickly dodged and drew a sword from thin air returning his own attack forcing Alric to step back.

The temperature in the room began to fall, Alric could see his breath but the cloak of darkness protected him from the cold meanwhile his pet Kluddes blocked off the rest of the gang from interfering with the fight.

Alric gripped his sword tighter and adopted his stance. Alric and the boss pounced at each other and clashed swords in a heavy exchange.

With every swing of his sword the boss would release ice magic.

Now after exchanging so many blows with Alric the room was covered in snow.

The boss was now becoming perplexed because Alric seemed unaffected by the dropping temperatures regardless of how much magic he put into it.

To make matters worse each time they exchanged blows he was the one left panting breathless.

The leader of this small gang was not very strong to Alric. He was more like a cockroach, each time he thought he delivered the final blow he would turn to snow and prove to be only a puppet.

Alric countered the ice attacks using the shadow cloak to defend and attacked with shadow tentacles. All of this while using his gravity mitigation to up his speed and strength.

This all was mana intensive and being only a beginner mage made him have to rely on his kludde’s tattoo for all the extra mana.

Essentially Alric was overclocking his physical limits and mana reserves just to keep on the same foot as the leader.

This took its toll on Alric’s body, for a split second Alric felt a sharp pain in his leg and stumbled slightly.

Finally the boss saw an opening. He was almost at his end in terms of mana but he had more combat experience and pushed the kid back while chanting spells.

Alric jumped back however when he looked ahead he saw a thick sheet of ice running towards him, when he looked up there was another and below him was also another already lifting him in the air throwing him off balance.

Before he could make heads of what was happening it was too late he was trapped in a coffin of ice.

“Ice Coffin!”

The boss grinned as he saw his most powerful spell be completed along with this brat already beginning to freeze.

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