Hello readers!

So this is a chapter that reveals a bit of Calb's secrets and some things about this world of magic. . . Enjoy!

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Once the three started on their way to the town, Taron and Serina started to talk about what they were going to do now that they have Calb coming along with them. It was one thing meeting a stranger on their way to town, but meeting a stranger that claim to have come from the sky that does not know how to speak Garmean is an another matter. The difference lies in that the former can take care of him/herself whereas the latter is totally helpless. Though Taron and Serina can be considered as reclusive, considering they live up in the mountain minding their own business, they weren’t heartless where they will desert a stranger in need.

“What should we do grandpa?” asks Serina. “He will be helpless. He has no family and he can’t even speak our language.”

“Yeah, that is of a concern,” replies Taron. “Though his claim about coming from the sky is a bit too hard to believe, but just by looking at his attire, I can’t completely deny the possibility of that. Of course there is another possibility, but that is highly unlikely as well.”

“Are you thinking about the Continental Towers?” asked Serina.

“Yes, but if he came through one of those, the closest one is two day’s walk from here, and that is if he had walked here in a straight line from there. Not only that, he would have had to fight through all the beasts from there to here, and you know how dangerous those beasts are surrounding the towers. You saw the condition of his attire, how cumbersome it was.” Nodded Serina. “There is no way he could have dealt with all those beasts when he had so much trouble just getting up from the ground,” continued Taron. He paused a bit and pondered on his own for a while, and not finding any answer, he decided on another matter of concern.

“Well, Cooky, I guess we can take that detour after all,” sighing Taron looking at the, all of a sudden, brightly smiling girl next to him. “Even if we do get there early today, because we need to do something about Calb, we would probably have to stay extra day anyway. So, you can go see that place today, we will spend the night at the town tonight, and talk to the town elders the next morning.”

“Yay!” cheered Serina. “That is the spirit. I knew you wouldn’t let your Cooky down.” She kissed him on his cheek.

“Fhmp! Fhmp!” Taron cleared his throat trying to appear as if unaffected by his charming granddaughter’s gentle kiss. “Like I’ve said, we are only going because we do have that time now. Plus, it may be that we may get some clue if we observe his reaction of seeing the tower. So instead of thanking me, you should thank Mr. Drool behind us,” said Taron, feeling like picking on the innocently unfortunate guy to change the subject.

“You are absolutely right grandpa. I should thank him, and as thanks, I am going to take him there personally,” beamed Serina.

“This is not a picnic!” scolding his granddaughter. “You are supposed to observe him, you hear?”

“Yes grandpa,” Serina replied with a big smile. Taron couldn’t help but to shake his head.

While Taron and Serina were having their conversation, Calb was preoccupied with something else. He was wondering about the strange sensation that he had just started to feel on the base of the back of his head. It started out as a warm tingly feeling that began in one spot and it gradually spread all over his head. It felt like an invisible, static-like, immaterial balloon gradually phasing into the brain as it grew in size. It kept on expanding little by little with pulsations, and the brain tissues that were already inside the balloon felt like they were going through an overhaul, creating channels of pulsating static energy.

It was then that Serina came over to him with a smile. “Calb, come on,” she gestured him to follow. “I am taking you to see my favorite spot.” She no longer cared whether he could understand or not. Making sure he was following, she turned around and quickened her pace.

It could seem like that she was being too careless around a stranger like Calb, and such would be of a concern in a normal case, but Serina was an martial artist, a very good one at that. She can be counted as one of the best in her age group. In fact, such is expected of her since her master is one of the Garmea’s top five experts, Taron.

Even though Calb couldn’t understand their language, he instinctively understood that Taron was Serina’s guardian, perhaps her grandfather. So, not wanting to cause any problem, he took a look at Taron as he was passing him to get a feel for the man’s thought on him following Serina, and as if Taron understood, he nodded and gestured Calb to go with Serina.

Since he received permission from Taron, Calb was more relaxed and, at the same time, eager to catch up to Serina. After all, he was already attracted her just by the fact that she is Christina’s identical look alike. What Calb didn’t know, however, was that even though Taron was in agreement of him going after Serina, Taron’s eyes didn’t stray from his back for a long time because something caught his eyes, or rather it was more of a disturbance in mana that he sensed and thus honed his eyes toward Calb’s neck.

As people cultivate mana, there is certain level of understanding everyone eventually reach. What they realize is that their ability to sense mana around them eventually trains their eyes to see it as well, but such development is very gradual to the point of most understanding intuitively versus analytically. With Taron being at the pinnacle of martial arts practitioners in all of Garmea continent, he was, naturally, the latter, and what he saw behind Calbs neck was something Taron couldn’t readily explain. Mana flow inside of Calb’s body was not flowing normally. It seemed to him that the origination of the irregular mana flow started out from Calb’s neck at the base of his skull, which was highly unusual, and by looking at Calb’s movements, he realized that this phenomenon was a surprise for Calb as well. Only thing that bothered Taron was whether Calb was surprised by the mana flow itself or the unusualness of the flow. That was something he must address with Calb later on, he thought.

Of course for Calb, this phenomenon was something new. Especially considering how, before coming to this place of magic, he was more machine than he was a human. As such, he would not be accustomed to feeling the flow of Qi, as he is feeling it now. In actuality, he didn’t even know whether what he was sensing now was flow of mana. Then, all of a sudden, this weird sense in his head intensified as it quickly spread to the rest of the body, and all Calb could do was stand still with sense of wonder and, at the same time, great concern. Then, unconsciously, he spread his arms to the side and he felt as if his whole body’s pores opened up as the pressure from inside of his body shot out at once, and at the same time, he was filled with a sense of knowing. Something told him that he had just made his first contact with this continent…with magic!

At this time, both Serina and Taron knew something definitely was wrong. They both looked at Calb, then at each other to see whether they noticed the flow of mana around Calb.

“Are you alright?” yelled Serina as she ran towards Calb. She noticed a dumbfounded expression from Calb, then what she heard next, floored her!

“Yes…, I am alright,“ Calb softly replied in amazement.

“You can understand me!?” shocked Serina.

“Yes! I can understand you now, for some reason,” he replied with delightful smile.

“What was that mana flow that just circulated in and out of your body?” asked Serina not knowing what to ask first.

At this, Calb didn’t have any idea what she was talking about, and said, “Pardon? What is this mana flow you are speaking of?” Calb gave Serina a confused look.

At this point, Taron also joined the two, and asked, “You don’t know what mana is?”

“No, I do not.”

“Well, you did sense something that was flowing inside of you just a few minutes ago right?” Not waiting for an answer he continued, “Then you felt something shoot out of you just now. and you also felt something go in right?”

Giving Taron a surprised look, Calb asked, “How is it that you know what I was feeling? You were able to see it? Both of you?”

“Well, I can only sense flow of mana with my level of mana control, but my grandfather can see it,” replied Serina.

“So what you are saying is that the feeling I had just now was what you call mana flow?”

“Yep, that was the mana flow,” replied Serina.

“What is this mana flow?”

Serina looked at her grandfather to ask whether he wanted to take over, and of course, with them being a family, he understood her without her having to say anything. Taron nodded.

“There are two ways of defining mana. One way, the most common way, of defining mana is that it is a magic energy. Second way of defining mana is that it is a soul energy.” Looking at Calb to try to gauge his level of understanding in the matter, Taron decided that he needed to give an expanded explanation of the two definition of mana. “I see that you need a whole lecture on this subject,” smiling at Calb. “However, if I am gonna do that, I need to, first, take care of the issue of where you came from. If I understood you correctly, you said you came from the sky right?”

Understanding where he is going with his question, Calb answered, “Actually, that was the best way of me explaining it to you considering I didn’t know how to speak your language at the time, and it surprises me that I apparently just know it somehow, but going back to the question, I came from another universe, as far as I understand it.”

“Another universe?” Both of them looked quizzically. “You mean another world?” asked Taron.

“Yes.”

“And your attire,” asked Taron, pointing at Calb’s jumpsuit, “is from, this, another world you speak of?” Calb nodded. “Hmmm…interesting…interesting indeed. And in this world of yours, you don’t use magic I take it?”

“Yes, we don’t use magic, but we use what’s called science. We build things that enable us to do things our bodies can not. For example, we built vessels that roam the stars.”

“Hmmm…interesting…yes…very interesting. So how is it that you came here? Did you come here on those vessels of yours?”

“Well, yes and no. I was on a vessel before I got here, but as to exactly how I got here, I don’t know. My vessel was caught in sort of a storm and got pulled into this world. I lost consciousness, and I found myself on top of that boulder where you found me.” He left out his talk with God because he didn’t know how to go about saying that ‘he had a talk with God.’

“I see…that really is a mystery. So your world used this thing called science, and you have no concept about magic?”

“In a sense, yes.” Calb didn’t want to extend the conversation by mentioning him having heard of it in fiction novels.

“Okay then. I still have various things to ask you, but for now, what I know of you is enough to establish some sort of understanding about where to start with my explanation. As you see, Calb, in our world, every living being has means of using magic, and how much magic each being can use is determined by how developed they are. For example, vegetations are alive, but what they are capable of utilizing is very little in terms of magic. They just use it to sustain their life. Humans, on the other hand, can utilize magic for various things such as enhancing body’s hardness, speed, and such for martial artists, whereas people that focus on mana manipulations only are what we call magicians. They are weak in physical combats, but they are able to condense mana into particles or elements and attack with them. Of course there is much more to martial artists and magicians, but for the sake of our conversation that would be enough.”

Suggesting the group to continue on their journey, Taron continued, “No one has a definite answer to where or how mana is generated, but general consensus is that mana can be gathered from our environments as well as other living beings. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I can pull mana out of your body or out of Serina over here without your permission. Mana transfer between people is only possible with permission, in case of me obtaining from you, or as an attack if I was to attack you with my mana. Again, there is more to it than that, but I am just keeping it simple for now. Though we don’t quite know where mana is generated, we do know that we start to gather it as soon as we are born into this world, and how much we gather it depends on how much we consciously cultivate it ourselves and store it within ourselves versus just letting it happen naturally, in which case the amount gathered is much less. Whatever the case, we associate mana with energy to do magic, just as wood can be used as an energy source to build a fire. It is a simple concept.”

Briefly pausing to study Calb, Taron continued, “The controversy is the second definition of mana. According to the second definition, it is said that mana is life-blood of a soul, just as blood in our bodies keeps us alive. That means, this second definition changes certain doctrines regarding the first definition. For example, I’ve said that every living being gathers mana as soon as they are born, but that would imply that we didn’t have mana in the first place. Second definition changes that. Sure, we gather mana as soon as we are born, but at the same time, we were born with mana ourselves. Now, there are those that are willing to believe little bit of both, saying that we are born with mana, generate it, and that we gather it, but they are not willing to go as far as to believe that it is a life-blood of a soul.“ Looking at Calb, Taron posed a question. “Why do you think that is?”

“Umm, I am not sure.”

“Well, for one, that would mean that, since mana is abundantly plentiful in this world, or should I say this continent? Since it is abundantly plentiful in this continent and there has to be a source, the logic would eventually boil down to understanding that this continent is, itself, a life form with a soul of its own! It would have to be. Why? If people are born with mana and can generate mana, all these plentiful mana in our environment must also be generated by a living source, and default source would be the continent. If we can accept that, then the next step would be that mana is a life-blood both for living beings as well as for the continent. For example, why would we create something that is not vital to our being? In other words, we would not create mana in our bodies if it is not something we do not need. Does this make sense to you?”

“I can see the logic behind it, but the concept is still too new for me to believe one way or another,” replied Calb.

“Well, at this point, as long as you can connect the logic you are in good shape, and what you choose to do with the information given to you is up to you, but let me tell you something. How far you can go or how much you can achieve in your cultivation or manipulation of mana will depend on what you choose to believe. Keep that in mind.”

“Yes sir,” bowed Calb. Calb could tell that Taron was definitely an expert on this matter, and he wanted to learn from him. He didn’t quite know how to react appropriately in this circumstance, but he remembered seeing situation like this in an old 21st century movie where disciples bowed to their masters. He just hoped bowing is a universal gesture of respect regardless of the world.

“OOOh Grandpa, looks like you gained another disciple,” teased Serina gleefully.

“Stop your prattle and get going you little brat.” Taron, once again, brought up his cane in a motion to hit her on her head, and as in the past, Serina ran off with her tongue toward her grandfather.

“Okay, now that the Ms Giggles is gone, let me tell you a bit about a hero. There is a legend about a hero that shaped this Plane. It was said that he had conquered all the continents on this Plane and established civilizations on all five continents, one of which is this continent called Garmea. The other continents are Romea, Farmea, Dormea, and Zormea. I am sure you can tell, but they all have similar ending name, and that is to honor the name of the hero, Lamea, which founded these continent’s civilizations.”

“No one knows where these continents are on this Plane. Also, no one that had left this continent, by sea, ever returned, or is there any record of anyone visiting Garmea from other continents by way of sea travel. It is said that these continents are so far apart that no mortal can explore continents by sea, but Hero Lamea had done it, obviously. It is thus, said that Hero Lamea was an immortal.”

At this point, Taron looked at Calb, anticipating a question from him, and realizing that Calb was not biting, he continued with a disappointed face, “Calb, how do you suppose I know about other continents if no one knows where the other continents are? Didn’t it occur to you that if no one knows where the other continents are, it would be impossible for us to know about the existence of other continents in the first place, not alone their names?”

As if the thought just occurred to him, Calb responded, “You are absolutely right. I should have caught onto that! So how DO you know?”

“In every continent, there are 5 towers that serve as portals to the other continents. We call those towers Continental Towers. What we know of Hero Lamea is written in those towers. However, not many venture into the towers, nor are there many travelers that come here from other continents. Only in once in a while do we get to see those travelers or adventurers, as we call them, from other continents.” Taron looked at Calb, again anticipating question from him.

Happy that he was given chance to redeem himself, Calb asked, “Why is that so?“

“It is so because One, when Hero Lamea built those towers, he had put a magic charm on the towers that attracted strong beasts in the environment. It was said that such was done in order to keep the towers from random destructions by careless thugs, not that the tower is so weak that it would be destroyed by some thugs. Second reason is that not many choose to follow the path of Hero Lamea. It was said that Hero Lamea, after setting the towers, teleported to God’s Courtyard to join God. Yes, the continental towers were constructed in order for mortals to visit God at his courtyard.”

“Of course, there are those pious types that has desire to go to God’s Courtyard, but those types are not necessarily strong enough to fend for themselves. Lastly, even among those that are relatively strong and are adventure, they still lack the means to defeat or avoid the beasts near the towers.” Again, looking at Calb, Taron asked a question, “You see, even if you defeat or avoid the beasts to get to the towers, you are only half done. Why would I say that?”

“I guess it would be because of the dangers of beasts from the other end of the continental towers?” guessed Calb.

“Exactly!” affirmed Taron. “You would be risking your life twice just to utilize the towers to get to another continent! Not only that, going towards the tower is, somewhat, easier than traveling away from the tower. It is so because when you are heading toward the tower, you can sort of do some scouting to see what type of beasts to expect or avoid. Will you have such luxury when you are exiting it? Not only that, you won’t know whether you will be able to handle the beasts on the other side until you get there. No, there is just too much danger involved in an intercontinental travel.”

“Now, let me tell you a bit about Garmea….”

In the scientific world that Calb came from, concept like “Plane” is not used often. It is so because Planes do not exist, but Planets do. Nobody, coming from scientific world, would believe that a world where Planes existed instead of Planets, and same was true with Calb. Calb understood that when Taron said Planes, he thought Taron was talking about Planet. With him coming from the world of science, it is understandable why he would think so because, according to the scientific principle, anything with mass has a central gravitational force that has a tendency to pull things to the center, which the end result would, then, be a round shape, like that of a Planet. However, the world that he crossed over to is a world of magic. Things do not necessarily follow the scientific principle, and even though gravitational force seems work in this world, as he is firmly attached to the ground, it certainly does not mean that it is the gravitational force that is keeping him attached to the ground.

So contrary to what Calb was thinking, this world where continent of Garmea was in, as well as other four continents, was actually a Plane. To be more precise, this Plane containing above mentioned continent is actually one Plane out of 6 Planes! When God formed this particular segment of the Universe, he had sent out 5 Beings of Power, giving each an authority to create Plane of their own. They all had special gifts assigned to them by God that dictated what kind of Plane would come into existence during each being’s procreation, and it was exactly that, a procreation, because the Planes resulted from matters from the beings themselves. In other words, those 5 beings became the Planes that are in existence in this segment of the Universe!

As for the Beings of Power, their names are Lamea of martial arts, residing in the first level; Pleevon of magic, residing in the second level; Kazan of Beast, residing in the third level; Manvil of Life, residing in the fourth level; and Nigel of death, residing in the fifth level, below God’s Courtyard, the final Plane. As these beings of power each have different type of magic, the resulting Planes also have properties that reflect those different types of magic. With that said, it is no mystery that the people that live in Lamea plane, so to speak, have natural knack for martial arts, just as people of the other planes have natural knack for properties of their corresponding Planes.

Now, for the Continental Towers, those structures, indeed, enable intercontinental travel, but certain ones also allow interplanary travel. The difference between intercontinental travel and interplanary travel lies in that there are no prerequisites that need to be met in order to travel from continent to continent, but in order for someone to travel from one plane to another one must acquire certain teachings, that are learned from the elders that serve as overseers of the said towers. Those elders, as the overseers of such towers, they automatically are the experts of the properties of the Plane, and therefore, each continent has 5 undisputed experts and, each Plane, 25 undisputed experts. Yes, Taron is one of those overseers!

Just as Taron mentioned how rare it is for adventurers to travel from one continent to another, as reasons given by Taron, rarity of adventures that travel from one Plane to another is even more so. The reason for it is that the adventurers must realize the existence of another Plane in the first place, for which such knowledge is almost like a hidden secret. Even if they learn of such existence, how would they go about doing that? They don’t know about requirements for above teachings, and as for the teachings, one must acquire one set of knowledge or skills from one of the 5 overseers of each continent from the lower Plane. That means, an adventurer must acquire total of 5 sets of knowledge or skills during their intercontinental travels of that particular Plane before they can go up to the higher Plane. What everything boils down to, then is, only the truly dedicated scholars of life gain access to interplanary travel.

Why the scholars of life? What does it mean to be a scholar of life? Isn’t a scholar of life someone that learns about life, if defined in most basic manner? What does learning about life has anything to do with these five Planes?

Taron and Calb finally caught up with Serina. She was sitting on a rocky cliff overlooking a very wide lake valley. It was almost like a lake was formed inside of a very big volcano of 1 mile diameter. Off in the distance by the other end of the lake, was a lone tower on a wide isthmus jotting out from the far left shore. It was heavily wooded isthmus with tall trees, but the tower was twice the height of the trees and it had a pentagonal structure at the top.

“Calb, you can go join Serina over there. I will be heading to my usual resting spot so give her some company. I am sure she will be in a talking mood,” chuckled Taron as he headed toward a shaded area underneath a tree. There was a little wooden table with tree stumps on either side to serve as chairs. It was obvious that they came here enough times for them to prepare such setting.

“See that tower over there Calb,” asked Serina hearing him approach her. “That is what is called Continental Tower.”

“Ahh, your grandfather mentioned those towers to me while we were walking over here,” replied Calb. He didn’t tell me how big those were, but looking at it from here, it must be fairly big.”

“Yeah, it is pretty big. I have never been there, but I have gone close to it numerous times. You see all those trees Calb?” She pointed at the densely packed trees surrounding the mouth of the isthmus extending outward in all direction for about half a mile. Beyond that half a mile of woods was another half mile strip of barren land where no trace of grass or any other vegetation was evident.

“That is the furthest I have ever gone near the tower,” continued Serina, sounding disappointed. “And you see that wide strip of barren land surrounding the trees?”

“Yeah, it would be kind of hard to miss that unusual geography. It definitely does not look normal,” replied Calb.

“That is the work of the beasts that reside in that barren strip of land, or rather, below the ground. They are worm type beasts that can sense even a tiny pressure applied on the ground. When they sense that pressure, they immediately pounce on the victim. The trick to passing them is by walking on the shoreline where the waters touch the shore. Though they are not harmed by the water, they are not as sensitive near the water because water disrupts their position sense. Not many people know of this fact. Only reason I know is because I come here a lot, you see. I would sometimes see some beasts get past them doing exactly what I just told you.”

As he was listening to Serina, he realized that even though she was asking him some questions as well as pointing out some things to him, she was mainly talking to herself. To Calb, it seemed like she was playing a simulation game within her mind over and over again.

“But you know what?” Serina continued without missing a beat. “Once you get in the wooded area, there are bunch of snakes that snaps out of their camouflage to strike at you. One or two of them are not that hard to fend off, but there are over hundred just in that small segment of wooded area. Their specialty is Psychic Turmoil. As you can probably guess, it is not a physical attack, but a mental attack. They flood you with psychic attack and wait until you lose your bearing, then they strike. I nearly lost my life when I went there last time, but luckily, my grandpa came to the rescue. My grandpa is the overseer of that tower, you see. There is no one on this continent that knows more about that tower over there than my grandpa. There are only four other overseers like my grandpa, you know. That is why grandpa, as well as those four other overseers, are known as this continent’s absolute, top five martial artists.”

At her statement, Calb was somewhat surprised. That was because Taron didn’t mention any of this. Taron certainly seemed knowledgeable about various things, and he seemed like a good martial artist, but his demeanor was not that of, what Calb thought was, a master martial artist should behave. As for the stories, Taron was just speaking as if he was simply relaying some stories that he had picked up over the years. Calb never would have imagined that Taron was speaking from experience as an overseer of such important structure.

“He is training me so that, one day, I can get to the tower by myself, but he says I am still far off.” Serina paused briefly in thought. “My mom went through that tower, you know. She was a much better martial artist than I am now, when she was my age, and I am considered very skilled for my age, you know. So that should tell you how skilled she was back then. I am sure she is much better now than she was before.”

Sensing sadness in her voice, Calb sat next to her to give her some support. During their trip to this place, Calb was making note of how different the two Christinas were. It seemed to Calb that Serina was a playful and confident woman whereas Christina was somewhat reserved and less than outgoing. However, upon coming to this “special” place of Serina’s and hearing her heartfelt longing for her mother made Calb realize that the two weren’t so different after all.

“When did she go to the other continent?” asked Calb.

“I was ten when she left. She went to look for my father. I don’t really remember him though. Apparently he had left to test his skills and never returned. Mom wanted to go with him, but I was too young, and even though I had my grandpa, she still didn’t want to leave me when I was so young. When I turned 10 and was proficient enough in martial arts to protect myself from most of the animals in our mountain, she thought that she had waited enough in trying to find my dad, and she left.” She barely finished the last part about her mother as her voice nearly became a sob.

“You know, I don’t mean to be less than empathetic, but I think you are fortunate that you can even say that you remember your mom, and that you have the opportunity to go find her on your own in the future. I on the other hand, I was an orphan. I was being passed around from one foster family to another until my last foster family that kept me until I left home, but my relationship with them were never that great. I do not know who gave birth to me, and in my world, I lived to be a 90 years old man, meaning my parents, even if I had the means of finding them, would be long dead. Of course let’s not forget,“ Calb raised his voice to try to be upbeat. “Even if I wasn’t an old man in my old world, and that my parents were still alive, I would first have to find a way to go back to my world. What it seems to me is that whichever way you look at it, it seems like I have had it lot worse than you. Don’t you think?” Calb sent a gentle smile to Serina as he bumped her shoulder to get her out of her funk.

Hearing about Calb’s family situation, she felt somewhat like an immature brat that was whining about nothing, as Calb definitely had it worse. Bringing herself into better mood, she replied teasingly, “So I am sitting next to an old foggie huh? You look pretty good for a 90 years old man to me,” said Serina as she gave him an appraising look with a smile.

“Oh, you like to hit them where it hurts huh? If it wasn’t for the fact that you are an expert in martial arts I would have hit you for that,” teased Calb.

“Muhaha..ha. That’s right, I am an all powerful martial artist. You better watch it old man,” giggled Serina as she bolted up and started skipping towards her grandpa.

“Grandpa! I am about done here! Let’s head back to the town,” she yelled toward her grandpa, interrupting his meditation, the privilege of a granddaughter!

Appreciating the upbeat mood of his granddaughter, he felt mighty glad. He didn’t expect her to rebound this quickly during one of their usual “Detours.” It normally took his granddaughter at least half a day to organize her heart and mind of missing her mother, but, he figured, Calb’s presence has had a positive influence on her. He looked toward Calb in thanks, but it was not a moment for thanks. Taron eyed a two meter long and one meter tall, rock lizard heading toward Calb.

Calb was oblivious of his surroundings as he was, now, looking at the cheerful woman that was nearly in tears, sitting next to him, just a few seconds ago. He was telling himself just how little he knew about women, especially this beautiful woman that can change her mood at a drop of a dime! Of course he didn’t notice the rock lizard that was eyeing him as if he was its next meal, and double of course, he had no clue what was going on when Taron was yelling at Serina.

“Serina!” Taron, looked past her to point his finger in the direction that she had just left.

It could be said that her reaction was extremely fast because she knew her grandfather well enough to sense and decode the urgency in his voice, but at the same time, it could also be said that her fast reaction was due to her heightened reflex gained living in the mountains while honing skills of a martial artist, but whatever the case, she gathered her mana around her staff as she instantly sent herself in the air with a back flip toward the direction of where she came from. She chose back flip because it accomplished two things. She was already skipping along, and thus, her legs were already in primed position to pound on the ground to instantly shorten the distance to the danger, and at the same time, while she was in the air doing her back flip, she would already have located her prey even before she lands, thus, allowing her no wasted time in her attack.

All Calb saw was this mysterious girl that he was admiring, all of a sudden, going from skipping to doing a back somersault and twisting in mid air to face him with her staff ready, and before he knew it, she launched her staff like a bolt past his face! Then all of a sudden, he heard a loud roar coming from immediately behind him that jolted him away in shock!

By the time he was able to orient himself to see what was going on, he found Serina already standing behind him in a defensive position, and what he saw past her, to her front, was a giant rock lizard that he never saw before in his life! That thing looked ferocious, and he was ready to do a back somersault of his own, not that he can actually perform a back somersault, when another figure came from his behind to steady him.

“You will be all right Calb. Serina got things under control.” Taron gently motioned him back as if he was enjoying what was about to happen.

Unmistakably, the indifferent composure of Taron and strong steady posture of Serina had a calming effect on Calb. “Wow, what is that thing Taron? I thought I was going to die!”

“It is a rock lizard by the name of ringbo. It is not really from around here, as it spends most of its time below at the bottom of the cliff you and Serina was sitting on, but it seems like it sensed something unusual today to have come all the way up here. You did see how high up you two were from the bottom right? You see, they are known to be ferocious, but they tend to stick to easy meals. One thing about these lizards is that even though they only prey on the weak, once they set their mind on something, it is very difficult to change their minds. That’s how the word ferocious got attached to them, because of their ferocity in not letting go of their prey. Looks like it thought you were an easy meal. Don’t you feel lucky?” chuckles Taron. “Now let’s watch.” Taron was all smiles.

Needless to say, Calb wasn’t very pleased at the thought of Taron mentioning him to be an easy meal for the ringbo. Talk about a hero of a Galactic Star Federation being reduced to some overgrown lizard’s meal!

Looking closely at the ringbo, Calb realized that it was already bleeding. Even though its exterior was that of a rock, it seemed like the blow from Serina’s staff had chipped off a big portion of rock armor from its chest to reveal a hole the size of a palm sized ball. However, despite the damage done to it by Serina’s staff, it didn’t seem to Calb that ringbo was about to give up. In fact, as he was thinking this, ringbo swung its tail toward Serina as it did a quick 360. Then as if continuing on the momentum gained by the spinning motion, it lunged at Serina trying to catch her off-guard, but she was prepared! She jumped, head first, to the outside of the circular path of ringbo to do a cartwheel to grab her staff that was lying off to the side. Then she, again, infused the staff with her mana and started her counter attack.

She struck at the tail of the ringbo that was about to start another 360, but with a loud “thud,” ringbo’s spin came to a halt. Then, not missing a beat, Serina side-stepped toward the head of ringbo and dealt a straight jab to the head with her staff that made its head flail to the other side, and not being done, she jumped straight up and brought a full swing of her staff down onto the body of ringbo as if she was going to chop the ringbo in half.

THUD!!! A loud sound of an impact echoes across the valley, and the ringbo is on its belly on the ground out cold!

This was a textbook maneuver when dealing with these ringbos. These lizards were called ringbos because of their round about way of attacking. They go round and round in order to build momentum to strike fast at their enemies, and if done long enough, they can concentrate their mana on their tail to form a gigantic ring of electricity the size of the circle created by their spinning, and that condensed ring of electricity can be flung off by its tail toward its intended target. So when Serina stopped its momentum by first hitting its tail, she had effectively stopped its two most powerful means of attack.

“Not bad…Not Bad,” clapping his hand at his granddaughter, Taron continues, “I think you have become much more efficient with your manipulation of mana, as well as your reaction time. You did good Cooky!”

“Grandpa! I’ve told you many times! Don’t call me COOKY in front of others!” Exasperated Serina yells at her grandpa, forgetting to catch a resting breath from the fight.

“What are you talking about? Don’t tell me my little Cooky is being shy around another man!?” replies Taron with big grin.

“Grandpa…!”

----------------------------------------------------

There you have it folks!

You got to see some progress and a little hint about what is going on with Calb. Also, a bit about the different planes in this world of magic has been revealed. This sort of sets the overall theme of this story and how it might progress....

Until next time....

-----MooShoo-----