Since my body completely recovered, I decide to return back to the orphanage, eat to replenish energy and also check on something, something that was left unanswered during my conversation with Helra.

I sprinted back to the church, reaching high speeds and arriving at my destination swiftly. I then slowed down and jogged inside of the church, taking my shoes off first. The church had about 20 pairs of shoes which were leant out to people wishing to go outside, but because of this low number compared to the amount of kids, we are normally not allowed to leave for longer than an hour, as to provide others with the chance to go outside.

I grab some food from the other church annex, which was being used by us as a storeroom for food and expirables, and then slowly walked while munching on an apple. I arrive at the entrance Grandma Sophia’s annex and peer inside. There are no doors in the entire church save for the entrance door, the storeroom door and the babyroom.

Grandma was sitting in her old rocking chair, slowly rocking. I first saw this habit in her a few months back. It seems like old people just grow to love how relaxing these pieces of furniture can be.

I walked in far quieter than I intended and said:

“Grandma, I want to ask a question.”

Startled, Grandma’s slow rocking accelerated from her sudden jump in the chair, before she forced a stop by pushing her legs against the ground. She quickly calmed and asked me with sincerity.

“What is it my child? What did you want to know?”

“I want to know more about the continent of Magia and it’s academies.”

“Hmmm? Child where did you learn about this?”

I point to the top shelf of the bookshelf, where it’s only booklet is situated. Grandma quickly realises and shows a passive expression, probably due to her age.

“I see… So you read that book with your vast intelligence? Considering how well you read, it isn’t that hard to imagine that. The only real problem would be getting the book off that shelf, but you would probably have made some sort of contraption or had some help, that wouldn’t make it difficult.”

I take that back, Grandma is far smarter than she lets off. Actually it was probably mainly because since she hangs around with young children, she doesn’t require to use much of her intellect to handle situations.

“Hmm… I haven’t been away from this orphanage for a very long time, so the only news I have is second hand, from the people who occasionally visit. But if that is alright with you, I will tell you what I know.”

I nod and sit down cross-legged on the floor, silently training my ‘aura’ capacity as I listen in.

“Since you read that book, and are aware of the past events, it helps greatly in informing you about it. About 300 years ago was when the booklets original copy was actually published and the one that we have is one that I copied for the orphanage.

Since it was published 300 years ago, that speaks for itself on how long academy city has existed. Unfortunately, unlike the history described in the book, the years were rather uneventful, lest for the first few expeditions to the Darklands.

The ‘Great Academy’ had many many students willing to go there due to their free tuition, incredible library and professional teachers. The limit to how many students were accepted didn’t exist for a while, taking in and cultivating all the young talents. However, about 50 years ago, they began to limit how many were accepted in, apparently being influenced by the other academies who wanted some talents to themselves.

Because of this, the Great Academy’s average talent levels were raised and so were the requirements to make it in. This of course also caused the Great Academy to have less students, and left the ones that didn’t make it in, but were still talented to join the other academies & schools.”

I raise my hand, wishing to pose a question.

“Yes?”

“I want to know what the overall talent requirement is for joining. Do you know what it is Grandma?”

Grandma looked at me with heartwarming eyes and tried to reassure me.

“I don’t know, but if you keep on training physically like you do nowadays, I am sure that you would make it in. But even if you don’t, you could probably receive a scholarship from another academy or school.”

So she knew about my training huh… Not that surprising I guess, considering my sudden achieving of this body. It seems she hasn’t thought of magic yet… or maybe she has and is just not saying it. Either way it doesn’t matter.

“All the countries borders expanded with the new magicians and magic warriors that came with the establishment of the Great Academy. They slowly pushed out the borders of the country, and we managed to expand a whole kilometre out in every direction!

Although it isn’t too much land gain, it was one of our few victories that we have achieved in our years as a civilization. The rest of the things that I know of is politics and the like, do you want to learn of it?”

I politely declined as I can just figure that out as I get there and I’ll have quite a bit of time later anyway.

Well, only as long as ‘Death’ doesn’t lose against whatever he is clearly fighting or running from.

I instead decided to ask about another matter. Our location in the world.

“We are in East Dragviir right now, closer to the borders of the Darklands than that of the borders of West Dragviir. Even though 3 centuries have past, we actually haven’t been able to map much of the continent as we haven’t been able to travel further than a dozen or so kilometres out from the city until all expedition forces were lost.”

“Thank you for helping me Grandma. I will go to not disturb you now, take a well-deserved rest.”

“Caring for the elderly, what a nice child.”

I hear those words as I leave the annex and turn my head to see Grandma close her eyes and start slowly rocking again.

Well, with my curiosity satisfied for now, let’s think about Death’s message.

Vividly recalling the moments that occurred today, I start to break them down and make a few conclusions for myself.

“You are my contingency plan - Do you understand?

Death is Eternal, but Chaos is Powerful. Remember those words and don’t fight the powerful - I will give you a mark.”

Considering how he was calling ‘Chaos’ powerful and warning me about the powerful, he likely meant for me to stay away from ‘Chaos’. The problem is with what this ‘Chaos’ is and what he is referring to.

Death is eternal isn’t too difficult to comprehend as it speaks for itself as he; ‘Death’ is immortal and in turn eternal. The concept of death is also around forever and is eternal. The problem arises with what exactly this has to do with his message.

Argh, I’m missing something, something that would complete the riddles solution.

Why is it that whenever I get close to any answers to do with Lord Death, I can never solve them?

Pissed off, I leave the orphanage again without a sliver of emotion on my face, a complete poker face. Making emotional faces is a simple thing, but they serve no purpose unless you are actually trying to convey the emotion that you are feeling to others.

Having a calm face actually helps influence your emotions to stay calm, just as having a happy expression on, even if fake can alter your feelings during a certain situation.

I walk out the door of the church and begin to sprint, hoping to train my leg strength this time, and not my technique or arm strength. I also try and run as silently as I can, avoiding any obstacles that are potential sound creators and also stepping lightly, but powerfully.

Stealth training basically. The most effective method of combat is to not fight at all, and instead take the enemy by surprise and kill them before they can even defend. I pointed out the weaknesses of a mage's body earlier, and even the strongest mage will die if he doesn’t use magic to protect his body.

The main reason as to why I adapted this sort of training is mainly because of the abilities that ‘Death Aura’ is capable of using. All of the abilities that uses ‘Death Aura’ are one-hit kills. Reaving is intended to instantly steal a person’s soul and although imposing can be used to just intimidate, it’s main purpose in battle is to influence the person’s actions and instantly kill them the instant they lower their guard.

As I sprint as silently as I can across the small forest and around the orphanage, I constantly release ‘aura’ out of my body in hope of increasing my ‘aura’ capacity. I cannot train in control at this moment because I have too little ‘aura’ accessible for me to control outside of my body, so I have to get back to the prior levels of ‘aura’ that I used to possess before I can attempt that feat.

I run without stopping for a long time. Too long a time. Hours past and I still don’t feel tired at all, feeling such an anomaly in logic, I stop running and a gruesome view enters my sight. My lefts hand mark of death is glowing subtly, far less than before but still glowing.

Blood oozes out of the edges of the mark and coats my fingers in a red glove, slowly dripping down to the ground. A few seconds after stopping, the mark’s light dies down and is replaced by a cold from the lack of blood. Already losing large amounts of blood today, and my body having to work over time to replace it, I could no longer hold onto my consciousness.

I fell face down into the grass with my head tilted to the side, and my eyes involuntarily closed after remaining vigilant for a few seconds.

I ‘awaken’ in a dark, dark place. There is no light, but a lot of a certain elemental particle flying around. The particle appears yellow, with incredible density and number. Suddenly my soul body feels as though it is being tugged on, as a section of it passes through a newly appeared tear in space.

The sight that falls before my eyes shocks me. I see Lord Death in his warform and holding a pure black scythe in his hand fighting ‘something’. I can only describe it as something as I can only see him attacking what appears to be darkness.

Out of the darkness appears a hand shape, golden and incredibly quick. The scythe and the hand collide silently, forming no change in the pitch dark plane of existence, but seeming to carry immense power.

The scythe in Death’s hand starts to flicker and it suddenly disappears under the force of the golden hand. The palm attack continues even after being delayed by the scythe and it hits Lord Death’s right hand, which twists and gets dislodged from its socket.

Death jumps back and gruesomely his hand twists back to its original shape as he fixes it forcefully with the ‘aura’ he releases. As all of this occurs, I feel nothing and all my senses are disabled save for sight and ‘aura’ detection.

Although I can see the immense density of the particles of ‘aura’, I cannot feel them and am not damaged by them.

As his hand twists back, the darkness appears to pull together to form a golden figure of a bald man with a spiked snake tail and spines along his back. Upon making this shape, Death’s eyes gain a harsher expression and the scythe forms in his hand again.

However this time instead of attacking with it physically, his hair sways as he swings it in front of his body horizontally and the scythe head flies off and becomes far larger than before, moving at high speeds towards the golden body.

The golden man raises his right hand and catches the crescent shaped wave with it, instantly dissipating the wave. He then lowers his right hand and raises his left, pointing his finger at Lord Death’s head and space seems to crack at the location, shattering and breaking Death’s head into many pieces, spilling black blood.