by Weiqi Wang
‘That’s… true!’ Soarame punched his own palm hard — the success with the mirrorface spell had been vivid proof of the dean’s claim! With that, Soarame suddenly realized that he still hadn’t fully appreciated what Ecrif had brought to him — the learning opportunity from a Godmade was probably the ultimate treasure a wizard can ever dream of!
‘Anyway, that’s enough for today.’ Dean Harries gradually suppressed his excitement. ‘Unfortunately, after so many years’ practice, I still can’t decode the subtle connection between Wind Elements and the air. Similar questions in other lineages are always challenging topics for all Expert wizards, and even Masters. It’s great of you to start thinking about it this early, but I suggest you don’t waste your time on that until you become an Expert.’
Vibration of Wind Elements… spreading in the air… After taking care of Alicey, Soarame was thinking deeply. At the boy’s repeated request, the dean had given him instructions on piercing wave before he left, which was really exciting. But the boy’s ambition was not just to learn the spell, but also to understand the “how”s and “why”s — it seemed that there was a long way to go though…
His mind occupied, Soarame didn’t know how long it took him to arrive at his dorm. The second he opened the door, he was shocked to see an absorbed Kardiac staring and roaring at him, like a sabre-rattling beast while it’s fighting. ‘Holy… what’s going on, man? You scared me!’
‘Oops! Soar.’ Kardiac instantly stopped, scratching his head. ‘Sorry. I was just practising.’
‘For what?’ Soarame was patting his own chest. ‘The beetalbulls?’
‘I must beat them right from the beginning.’ Kardiac nodded seriously. ‘By looking more creepy and scary.’
‘You’ve made it, then!’ Soarame was amused. ‘So you are ready for the Jankide Quest?’
‘I have to.’ The bulky boy tightened up his muscles, trying to encourage himself. ‘It can’t have been easy for Mr Principal to approve your application — I thought he would keep you rooted on campus.’
‘Mine got approved too?’ Soarame was excited; he quickly checked his emblem and confirmed it. ‘I know why! Sunrise Alliance must have checked the quest field — wherever it is, so Max can’t be there.’
‘Anyway, you can go, so I must go too!’ Kardiac took a deep breath as if he was warming up already. ‘I’ve packed a bit of food and drink for us. They should be enough, what do you think?’
Soarame turned to see two big bags sitting in the corner. ‘You call that a bit of food? How heavy are they?’
‘A little heavy, but it’s better than starving.’ Kardiac looked pretty proud of his work.
‘Yes… but it’s not just a little heavy!’ Soarame tried to lift one of the bags, but was concerned to see that he could barely manage it. ‘How can we battle with these on our backs?’
‘Hmm… good question.’ Kardiac cupped his chin. ‘If you can take care of the beetalbulls, I can take care of two bags… Let me show you.’ With that, Kardiac went ahead and put both bags on his shoulders. He actually managed it without too much trouble.
‘Fine.’ Soarame was amused. ‘But you packed them too early! They will rot by the time we leave!’
****
‘Of course it’s here. Just like the last time.’
Days later, the friends gathered by the boundary of the campus, in front of a cliff. It was very much like the spot where they had accidentally got into the beetalbull nest years ago, so everyone saw a big bulky boy already shaking and sweating, with two huge bags on his back shaking too.
‘It’s okay.’ Catheray grabbed Kardiac’s arm. ‘I’ll protect you.’
‘No, I’ll protect you!’ Kardiac felt insulted as he saw everyone chuckling.
‘You are having a good time, aren’t you?’ The teacher paced back and forth in front of the friends. He wasn’t pleased to see the friends joking and chuckling. ‘You think this is a game, don’t you?’
‘No, sir.’ Dileys spoke up for the group. ‘It’s a quest and we will treat it seriously.’
‘Then you’d better drop your food bags.’ The teacher didn’t seem convinced. ‘Those bags do make you look like you are on a picnic trip, especially the biggest two. And they were still shaking, by the way.’
‘We will spend two weeks in the quest. We have a long way to go!’ Kriagon spoke up before Kardiac. His bag was the biggest except for Kardiac’s two. ‘What’s wrong with taking enough food and drink?’
‘What’s wrong? You are supposed to find your food along the way, not prepare it beforehand!’ The teacher stared at him and took out a small booklet. ‘Didn’t you read the instructions for the quest?’
‘You mean… we are really supposed to feed on the magimals?’ The friends looked at each other. They certainly had read that part from the instructions, but had decided to ignore it. ‘That’s so cruel!’
‘Excuse me? You worry about you feeding on them more than them feeding on you?’ The teacher barked with dissatisfaction. ‘If that’s the case, I don’t think you should go in there — you do have a long way to go, but you don’t seem ready at all!’
‘Yes, we are ready!’ Dileys hurriedly took out the same booklet and waved it. ‘We’ve read the instructions, and we’ll do whatever is necessary to survive.’
‘I really do hope so.’ The teacher was not totally convinced, but he knew that most of the other students were no better than this group. And that’s why it was called a rehearsal — to let the newbies train and learn. After all, being a real wizard is not the same as being a student; it certainly wasn’t as easy as most people imagined. A real wizard must be able to carry out hard missions, both physically and mentally, and face cruel facts so that the civilians don’t have to. In that sense, killing wild beasts and feeding on them in order to survive is probably the easiest part to start with.
‘Now that you’ve read the instructions, you must know that this quest is totally unsupervised. Only in this way can it be a real rehearsal, where you are all by yourselves in a wild area. Chelonad will not be there to help you, even if you are dying.’ The teacher said, seriously. ‘So remember; the only way to save yourself — tell me what that is?’
‘The emblem!’ The friends answered in union. Because the quest was more dangerous than ordinary rehearsals, the school had decided to offer one chance for each student to survive — by triggering a one-time magic array that was set on his or her Libral Emblem for the quest, he or she would be teleported back to the campus. But at the same time, that student would lose the eligibility to re-enter the quest forever, because he was theoretically already dead.
‘That’s right. In exchange for your life, once it’s triggered you are out forever. But if you can stay two weeks and get summoned back by the school, you can re-enter later.’ The teacher nodded. ‘For your information, the quest has been open for days, and quite a few have entered before you. Unfortunately, most of them have come out already, bearing bloody wounds.’
‘It’s that bad?’ The friends were surprised.
‘It could be even worse. Who knows what has happened to the remaining ones? What if they failed to trigger the emblem?’ The teacher said gravely. ‘So if you are still not convinced that you could get killed in there, don’t enter now. Go back and get more prepared — at least stop shaking first.’
‘Just let us in!’ Kardiac was so fed up with the mocking. ‘We want to enter now!’
‘I hope you really mean it.’ The teacher squinted at the boy and waved his wand — a whirl emerged on the cliff. ‘This will teleport you to the jankide area. It’s set up by the Alliance, and only our school can open it. Once you step in, it’ll close itself and you can’t turn back.’
Seeing the whirl, Kardiac was graphically reminded of how they had been sucked into the beetalbull nest years ago. His face suddenly became paler, and he stopped walking all of a sudden.
‘What? Changed your mind already?’ The teacher frowned. ‘Or do you need a towel to wipe y
our sweat?’
‘Aww!’ Kardiac roared upon hearing that, and dashed into the whirl.
‘Guys, take care!’ Catheray waved to the other team and hurriedly followed Kardiac into the whirl. The rest of them also walked in after waving at their friends. After that, the whirl disappeared, leaving the teacher and the five in team two.
‘Kardy!’
In a long and narrow cave, the team’s voices echoed. The cave was dim but not completely dark, so they easily found Kardiac not far ahead, lying on his stomach.
‘That was impressive!’ They went ahead to the boy. ‘You made it!’
‘I already regret it.’ Kardiac tried to unload the heavy bags on his shoulders and push himself up. ‘I wouldn’t have gone in if I’d known the first thing I’d do here would be to fall over.’ With that, he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. ‘Damn that teacher, screw his towel!’
‘Yes, he’s so mean,’ Jemario complained. ‘He should be supportive and encouraging.’
‘He is supportive.’ Dileys disagreed. ‘He’s supporting us with some mental preparation.’
‘For what? Death?’ Catheray rolled her eyes. ‘You seriously believe our school will watch us die? Come on!’
‘Ahhh —’
Just then, a girl’s scream echoed in the cave, followed by some weird noises. The friends were instantly alerted. ‘What’s going on? I thought we were to be separated from the other teams?’
‘Help her first!’ Soarame found the direction and led the way. ‘HOLD ON! WE ARE COMING!’ The friends yelled to the unknown girl as they marched ahead carefully on the uneven ground.
‘Something is chasing her!’ As the scream became louder and louder, the friends could hear that there were some animal noises mixed in with the screams. ‘It sounds like a dhole.’
‘Actually, dholes.’ Soarame was the first to catch sight of the girl. In Soarame’s Magneer vision, she was surrounded by blue dots, meaning that she was a Water wizard. Following her, several dhole-like magimals were in hot pursuit, surrounded by yellow dots — they were Earth magimals. The girl was clever enough to keep spelling ice layers on the ground behind her, so that the dholes kept slipping and couldn’t catch up.
‘HELP ME!’ The girl saw the friends too, and sped up towards them. The friends cast all kinds of spells to attack the dholes, and made them stop pursuing. However, the dholes didn’t leave, but decided to stare at the human group instead, in a stalemate.
‘Are you hurt?’ The friends sped ahead to help the exhausted girl. ‘What happened?’
‘I’m fine. But my friends…’ The girl was sobbing. ‘I don’t know how they are now!’
‘Julia?’ Soarame had been wondering why the girl’s voice sounded familiar and, after a closer look, he recognized her. Julia had been among his first friends when he was a freshman, and actually the very first friend with whom he set a chat channel in his Libral Emblem. They had hung out years ago, but the talented Water girl became disappointed in Soarame’s unspectacular Water gift and gradually moved away from him. Till one day, Soarame suddenly found that her name had disappeared from his emblem — the girl needed to vacate a slot for someone else — and it was quite a bitter taste to the boy.
‘Soarame?’ Julia was surprised and at the same time embarrassed; since she’d removed Soarame from her emblem after grading over him, they had not been in touch. Then, one day, Julia suddenly heard the story of MagiMax, and saw a familiar name on the cover of Cylone Times. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it, especially after she witnessed a game of the Resurgers with her own eyes. Coincidentally, Julia became a Grade-5 just before Soarame became a Grade-4, so they had always been at distance from each other.
‘Bowwow…’ Although the recollection only took a second, the dholes were already running out of patience. In the darkness, the friends couldn’t see the dholes’ appearance in detail, but they did see their tusks flickering.
‘Watch out!’ A bulky body blocked the friends’ vision — it was Kardiac. Apparently, dholes were not as frightening to him as beetalbulls. Although he was still a little nervous, he chose to step to the front of the group and snarl at the dholes. ‘Awwwawa!’
Seeing the boy make his sabre-rattling face, the dholes were instantly provoked and launched their attack. This startled Kardiac, but fortunately everyone was prepared and joined the fight right away. Noises from all kinds of spells echoed in the cave. The battle didn’t last long, because the dholes were just Novice magimals and the friends were much stronger and smarter. A few minutes later, they defeated the dholes at the cost of just a few scratches. After losing two, the rest of the dholes escaped.
‘Great job!’ The friends cheered each other for their very first victory. Soarame quickly updated everyone. ‘Snower just told me that they were in too, but she can’t tell where exactly.’
‘Great! Can you tell them about our victory, Pipi?’ Jemario caressed the monkey’s head. ‘By the way, who wants to take out the soulcores?’
‘Let the boys do it.’ Catheray instantly stepped back. Her body was still shaking with nerves. After all, it had been her first time ever in a real battle against savage beasts.
‘Kardy, why don’t you do it?’ Dileys said. ‘You killed one of them, it’s your privilege.’
‘I give the privilege to you.’ Kardiac shivered as soon as he pictured the cruel scene. ‘We should let everyone enjoy the opportunities evenly, right?’
‘Seriously? You want a girl to do the dirty work?’ Catheray mocked Kardiac. ‘I thought someone said he’d protect us?’
‘Stop. I’ll do it.’ Soarame hesitated a bit but made this decision. He fetched a dagger and walked to one body, then slowly crouched for a try. But when he put the dagger against the dhole’s skull, he suddenly realized that it was actually a lot harder to make the move than he imagined.
Come on Soar, you can do this! Everyone was shouting inside, but no one spoke out. No one understood why it felt even scarier to cut a dead body than to kill it when it was alive, but it did feel so terribly bad.
Touching the fur and skin of the dead dhole, which was still warm, Soarame’s hands shook. ‘Guys, I…’
‘Just use your windblade to cut it.’ Jemario couldn’t help it. ‘Close your eyes if you don’t wanna look.’
‘That’s a good idea.’ But before he could spell a windblade, Julia stopped him —
‘Let me.’
‘Are you sure?’ Soarame was surprised to see Julia take over the dagger. Before he said anything more, the girl harshly thrust the dagger into the dhole’s skull, and cut it open.
‘Hooo…’ Everyone inhaled a cold breath. They started to watch Julia in a different way, but were not sure what to say.
‘Surprised? You think I’m cruel?’ Julia took out a shining crystal-like thing — the soulcore — with her bloody hands. ‘I was this close to being eaten up by these beasts, and I don’t think they would have hesitated in cracking open my skull!’
‘That’s… true.’ The friends had to agree after a brief silence.
‘And my friends… I don’t even know if they are still alive!’ Julia started to sob. ‘They are my best friends! Including someone that I like! I hate these beasts! And I really don’t understand why you hesitated so much!’
‘I’ll take the other one.’ Dileys suddenly stepped forward and grabbed the dagger from Julia. With a scream, she also cut it open and took out another soulcore. ‘Julia is right. Don’t forget why we are here!’
‘But Rodka was not hurt by any of these beasts?’ Catheray asked haltingly.
‘He’s not, but we still need to do this to help him.’ Soarame sighed. ‘Plus, we are supposed to fight against the wild beasts to protect our people one day. We’ll have to do this sooner or later, because we are wizards!’
Soarame wasn’t sure if his words made anyone feel better, but he did see everyone nodding simultaneously.
‘Sorry to interrupt your morale speech, but can we please hurry up to help m
y friends?’ Julia was anxious. She quickly stated what had happened: her group had been winning several small battles since they arrived, but the noises disturbed a large group of dholes, so they were besieged and suffered the sudden strike. They could have chosen to activate the emblems, but no one wanted to lose the eligibility forever, so they decided to give fighting a desperate try. During the chaotic battle, the group was split apart and everyone had to run for their own survival — just like Julia herself. She was lucky to run into Soarame’s team, but the rest of them…
‘Sure, lead the way!’ The friends agreed, although they knew they ran the risk of encountering dholes again. The team then marched fast towards Julia’s best guess of direction, but fortunately they didn’t run into anyone. As they went further Julia became more and more frustrated, because she realized that she had lost the direction.
‘There’s some blood and scratches here.’ Jemario was careful enough to spot some signs of battle on the ground. ‘So someone was here before.’
‘But now he’s gone, that means…’ Catheray paused. ‘He probably triggered the emblem, right?’
‘Let’s hope so.’ Julia bit her lips. ‘It could also be… emm… No, it must be someone from another team.’
‘What now?’ Kardiac asked. ‘Where shall we go?’
‘Where was your team before you split?’ Soarame asked Julia. ‘And how long have you been here?’
‘Five days.’ Julia wiped off her sweat. ‘We were in a valley somewhere. We encountered the dholes right there.’
‘I see. We saw the photo.’ Dileys reminded everyone of the photo that they’d watched together. ‘But you don’t remember where it is, do you?’
‘No. I was running for my life, otherwise I would have left some marks…’ Julia was regretful.
‘Wait, you did leave some marks!’ Jemario suddenly spoke up. ‘I saw you summon ice on the ground to make the dholes slip off.’
‘That’s right, smart girl!’ The friends were happy. ‘So we can trace the remaining ice before it melts!’