by Weiqi Wang
Walking out of the castle, Soarame still couldn’t get over the vivid illusion Aertiuno had made. He had to admit that he had largely underestimated this man’s power, so that he hadn’t only sunk into his mind control spell, but also immersed himself so badly that even the sharp pain couldn’t wake him up. If Aertiuno had been malevolent, god knows what could have happened!
Also, Soarame was wondering about all the uncanny things from the illusion — the weird cavern, the pouncing vines, the talking tree, the lethal bugs… Soarame found them incredibly vivid and real — could they really exist somewhere in the world?
****
A couple of days passed and the Friday came.
At Soarame’s secret corner, the boy jumped up from the grass, happy. Today he had made some new progress — with a rotation of both hands, Soarame had summoned a cluster of Water Elements and started to assemble them. Soon enough, a rabbit-like Snower showed up in between his hands — it was almost like the carving he’d made last time.
Fondling the ice rabbit, Soarame nodded with satisfaction. He had spent years learning ice-carving skills, and he needed an entire day to carve any sculpture. In contrast, just then he had taken no more than a few minutes to make a very similar one, if not better. This was all thanks to the cryptic pattern inside the broadsword — it had helped Soarame make mirrorface plates, and this time it had helped him make an ice sculpture.
Throwing the sculpture away — just as Dafinol always did, Soarame walked towards the Water arena. He had to go to Sandoray’s class today — as a consequence of his “constipation” last time. Although a bit nervous, the boy was generally very happy because of three good pieces of news: the Resurgers had made it into the Championship final a couple of days ago; his mind painting would be sold at auction this evening; and, to his most concern, Filton’s third letter had arrived! The letter was still short, but it told Soarame that Filton was very proud of his adventure so far and had been enjoying it. To celebrate these events, the boy had planned a party, but before that…
‘Take this medicine.’
Seeing Soarame arrive, Sandoray threw a bag to him.
‘I see you have all kinds of belly troubles, repeatedly. This drug should ease your stomach for you.’ Sandoray looked at Soarame in a “Sandoray way”. ‘If it doesn’t work, you come to me and I can help you out in person.’
‘Err…’ Soarame caught the medicine bag, at a loss for words. His classmates were chuckling — this boy was not going to have an easy time today.
‘Soarame, it’s time to show us your mirrorface spell.’ Sandoray led the students to the centre of the arena. ‘You’ve exhibited it in the game, so I assume you won’t be miserly about sharing your skills with us ladies. Or am I wrong?’
‘…’ Soarame had to scratch his head. Sandoray was smart enough to make the girls support her by using the phrase “us ladies”. Soarame peeked at Jemario and her friends, only to find that even they had betrayed him.
‘Fine.’ Soarame chanted the incantation of mirrorface, and slowly drew a circle in the air, aggregating a cluster of neatly aligned Water Elements — in his Magneer vision — which finally formed a small, shining plate.
‘Wow…’ The girls were watching carefully, with their beautiful eyes wide open. Sandoray had only taught them this spell a few weeks ago; how could Soarame have mastered it in such a short time? They hadn’t forgotten that, although this boy had a unique mindset and seemed to be smart, he only had a “capable” gift in Water!
‘It’s all about hard practice.’ Soarame had to tough this one out. ‘I’ve been practising day and night — it even causes diarrhoea and constipation.’
‘Poochee…’ The girls couldn’t hold back their laughter. ‘Shut up! It’s gross!’
‘You don’t have to picture it.’ Soarame shrugged his shoulders, grimacing.
Everyone booed and bahed at that. Even Sandoray had to frown. Soarame was intentionally stirring things up to distract Sandoray, because he knew she would never believe his lie.
‘Enough. Although in real battles distractive wording can work, we are not your enemies here.’ Seeing Soarame trying to say something more disgusting, Sandoray hurriedly cut him off. ‘But I know you long for a real battle, so get ready now.’
Soarame was relieved to hear this. He got Sandoray’s meaning between words — she would let him keep his secret, but in exchange Soarame must exhibit his real power in the coming battle.
Of course, the boy lost once again to the queen — really badly this time, worse than ever. Sandoray meant to punish Soarame on hiding his real power, at the same time testing what his real power really was. The results satisfied her greatly — Soarame was even better than she expected.
The battle didn’t take long, and Sandoray was already healing the boy again. ‘Okay, you all saw his odd usage of mirrorface. It was actually a nice try, although it failed this time.’
She was talking about a few seconds ago — before Soarame got crushed, he was desperate to use the mirrorface plate as a weapon and threw it out like a frisbee. With the disturbance from his icearrows blast at the same time, the plate made an arcing trajectory and almost got Sandoray. Sandoray marvelled once more at this boy’s talent, and she would by no means waste it. ‘Soarame, now that you’ve mastered mirrorface even better than I thought, there’s no reason for you to stay in Grade 4.’
Oh no! Soarame barked inside; he had been praying for this not to happen. ‘Ma’am… no, no, Miss! Miss Greibec, I’m not that good! I’ll need time to learn it firmly before grading up…’
‘I think Jemario is almost there too, as we all witnessed her progress on mirrorface in our last class — just when you were enjoying your constipation.’ Sandoray cut Soarame off. ‘It won’t take long for her to master it, and then she can grade up too.’
‘Err… hmm… oh.’ Soarame’s expression changed several times as he stopped finding excuses. This amused everyone, especially Jemario herself and her friends. Soarame looked at Jemario with questioning eyes —You didn’t tell me anything about this!
You didn’t tell me either, remember? Jemario looked straight back with a grimace. This made Soarame speechless, as he was reminded that he was actually an Expert now, but he still hadn’t told her!
‘Welcome, Your Honours!’
Hours later, by the gate of the auction hall, the manager greeted the friends — who were all there except for Soarame. The manager was rather disappointed about that, since he had been so keen to meet the boy in person.
The friends enjoyed the highest-class treatment, all the way along to the private bidding room upstairs. From their private room, the friends could see a crowded auction hall underneath, with people in many different styles of clothing. In contrast, the special settings of the window ensured that the people down there couldn’t see the friends.
The auction soon started. The host walked to the centre of the stage and revealed the first item. ‘Ladies and gentleman, allow me to introduce the windwolf’s soulcore. As you might know, windwolves are level-8 magimals, with born-gifts in Wind and Darkness. Although they are Expert-level magimals with enough power to survive alone, they still tend to live in big clans; hence it’s extremely hard to kill one and get its soulcore…’
‘Windwolf?’ The friends were surprised. They surreptitiously peeked at Alicey, because her magimal, Niuniu, was a windwolf. Alicey certainly didn’t look happy — she was biting her lips and frowning. However, she had just experienced the Jankide Quest herself, so she knew that there was nothing one could do about the soulcore business. Besides soulcores, magimal bodies were also valuable because they were fine materials for making weapons and magigears, so wizards, warriors and magigear manufacturers all liked them. Moreover, if a person could afford to use them simply as decorations in his house, it would totally wow his guests; so royalty and other rich people were usually big buyers in the market too.
As the friends watched, the bid kept going higher and higher, thanks to a la
rge number of rich people. In the end it was taken by a fat-bellied man at a stunning price — 500 ruby coins.
‘This man must be crazy!’ Kardiac barked. ‘What does he want it for anyway? He’s not even a wizard!’ Kardiac’s words frightened the waiter beside him; he hastened forward to make sure the door was sealed so that Kardiac wouldn’t be heard.
‘Must be a gift for his girlfriend. You know, soulcores are shiny, and they are as tough as diamonds, plus tons more precious.’ Ericson humphed with a contemptuous face, pointing at a skimpily-dressed woman who was kissing the buyer’s cheek. ‘Stupid men and women, I really can’t understand what’s the point of a gem or a diamond in a ring!’
‘And the fur!’ Omifo followed up. ‘Why a mink coat? Or a fox coat, or any fur coat?’
‘Because it keeps you warm?’ Vivarin said. ‘You’d appreciate it in winter.’
‘But we don’t need to wear fur coats to keep warm! Any thick coat works! Why do we have to kill animals for that!’ Jemario shook her head. ‘It’s vanity, admit it — fur coats look better, and that’s it! Humans kill animals just because they wanna look better! But I just don’t get it: why does killing make them look better?’
‘Just to remind you, we killed lots of magimals in the quest.’ Kardiac scratched his head. ‘And we exchanged their fur and soulcores for our reward.’
‘Are you stupid? They wanted to eat us!’ Catheray stared at him. ‘Plus, we did it to save our friend, not to get fur coats!’
‘Fur coats are not even the worst case.’ Ericson waved his hands, signalling Catheray to calm down. ‘Do you know that some people peel the skins off live animals just to make the fur and skins fresh — as Jem claimed, for the vanity of the buyers — so that the sellers can get a higher price?’
‘WHAT THE HELL?!’ Kardiac’s eyes almost popped out. ‘ARE YOU SERIOUS?!’
‘How surprising that you’ve never heard about it!’ Ericson looked at him. ‘Human greed will make their race extinct eventually, but they don’t care!’
‘My dad said that too, but he also said we were too weak to stop them.’ Alicey sighed. ‘So he asked me to take good care of Niuniu and never try to hurt her. He said if everyone could behave this way, we might actually make a difference.’
‘No, you won’t.’ Ericson humphed with a sneer. ‘They won’t care what you are doing to protect your magimal; they will still peel the skins off live animals. Tell you what: before they peel them off, they chop off the animals’ legs first so that they won’t be able to escape.’
‘BLOODY HELL!!!’ This time, everyone jumped up from the couch. ‘IS THAT REAL?!’
‘The animals are still alive, suffering ten time more severe pain than Rodka. This has happened since god-knows-when, and it’s still happening.’ Ericson’s cold voice made the friends picture this extremely brutal scenario. ‘Have you ever seen a pile of dying minks stacked like a hill — all with their bare bloody flesh but without skin? Or a crying cow screeching in the mud because its legs were all chopped off, and its back was cut open, and its backbones and ribs showing — during the live skin peeling?’
‘Puke!’ Catheray could no longer hold it, followed by everyone. The waiter was feeling uneasy too, but he could still bear it because he had been aware of these true stories. The chaos last a while before the friends settled down, but they were still angry and frustrated. They had missed several items in the auction, but nobody cared about that now. They had never realized that such cruel and gruesome things were happening in the world, while they were enjoying their peaceful and naïve school lives. The worst part was that, even now that they knew about it, they couldn’t do anything to change it!
‘The next item is called “Aurora’s forgiveness”, a gorgeous ladies’ necklace.’ The auction was still going on. The friends forced themselves to listen, so that they could take their minds off the horrific things Ericson had told them. ‘However, the point is neither its elegant design, nor the big diamond in the middle. It’s perfused with Light magic so it’s an actual Light magigear!’
‘As we all know, usually a magigear can only be used by a wizard, but some are different — this one is an example. It’s designed to use crystal chips as energy resources, so that it can spell warmth of sunshine to heal its owner.’ With that, the host triggered the magigear in a live demonstration — a beam of soft light covered a female volunteer, making her scream with excitement.
‘So, wearing this elegantly-designed magigear is like having a Light wizard standing by all the time; only it won’t peek at your cleavage.’ The host made the rich buyers giggle. ‘Okay, enough talking. The bidding starts at 50 ruby coins!’
Obviously, not everything would reach a stunning 500. Although this item was a magigear, this kind was relatively easy to get. Finally the deal was made at 150, and many thought it overpriced.
‘Is a warmth of Sunshine spell really worth this much?’ Kardiac asked, with the intention of changing the topic.
‘If it is, I’ll do that as my career.’ Omifo teased, with the same idea. ‘The high price is for the artistic design. Art is invaluable.’
‘Speaking of that, where’s Soarame’s painting?’ Catheray was impatient. ‘The first item finished at 500, and the rest all got good prices. If Soarame’s work is only worth about 10 ruby coins, why has it not come up yet?’
‘Relax, the people here know what they are doing.’ Ericson said casually. ‘The later Soar’s painting is shown, the better it means they think it is.’
‘The next item is a special one. I’m actually still not sure if we really wanna sell it today, but the owner insisted, so we just have to.’ Just then, the host was dragging a cart to the centre of the stage. On top of the cart there was something square in shape, under a red silk cover. ‘This item may not be the most expensive one in today’s auction, but it’s definitely the most special. Again, if we were not forced to, we wouldn’t even sell it; because it’s such a classic that we really wanted to buy it and keep it for ourselves!’
‘What is it?’ The host had succeeded in piquing people’s interest; whispering spread all over the place. Meanwhile, the friends instantly became excited, because they realized that this what they had come here for —
‘Before I show the true face of this item, allow me to tell you an incredible story that you don’t wanna miss.’ The host took time to breathe and compose himself, then slowly continued. ‘Two years ago, Cylone City, where we are right now, had a fire in the downtown area. The location was a magigear shop named MagiMax, the biggest and most famous one in our city — anyone who hasn’t heard of this store, raise your hand please?’
‘He’s good. He’s taking advantage of people’s vanity, see?’ Seeing no one raise a hand, Ericson sneered. ‘MagiMax has been gone for so long, but everyone knows about it? If they do, they’d better offer a higher price later.’
‘Great. The MagiMax fire happened due to a magic battle within it, and the owner was later verified to be a criminal. He’s a fraud and a thief, and he had obtained lots of his property by swindling people. However…’ The host paused to make his audience anxious. ‘When he tried to rip off the owner of this item, he suffered his most miserable failure. His magnificent store got burnt down, his substantial property got confiscated, and his secret identity got exposed! In the end, he had to flee and hide for the rest of his life, like a stray!’
‘Even more sadly, his right arm got cut off — by the very owner of this very item, right here, in front of you!’ Seeing the buyers impressed, the host continued. ‘As you may already have figured out, the owner is an incredibly talented young wizard, from Institute of Libral, right beside us! As a star of this, the most famous magic school in the world, he defeated the evil Max with his best shot of magic spells — windblade!’
‘Wow!’ The buyers were totally occupied; applause sounded everywhere. Even the friends felt their blood surge in their veins, thanks to the provocative speech. As a hot-headed story-teller, Kardiac had to admit th
at he finally learnt how to really tell a story.
‘I know you are eager for a name. The name is — Mr. Soarame Jadeking! His photo was on the cover of Cylone Times two years ago — we have gathered copies here for you!’ The host waved his hands and a number of waiters quickly distributed the copies to the buyers; this certainly caused another stir. ‘Yes, as you can see, during that event Soarame discovered that he had the ability to fly— it’s not a flightcloak, but a flying spell of his own! It was his flying and windblade spells that helped him defeat Max, and he’s the only current Libral student who can do the Expert-level flying spell!’
‘Mr Jadeking is still in Libral, as of today.’ In the blast of wowing, the host had to raise his voice to make himself heard. ‘That’s why we have this unique chance, right here, right now, to put his art work on the stage. Once he graduates — and it’s not gonna take long — we won’t be able to get another one by him!’
‘What kind of art work?’ The bidders started to yell. ‘Show us!’
‘Before I do that, let me tell you one last thing.’ Seeing that he had achieved the level of anticipation he wanted, the host smiled widely. ‘Soarame is not only a talented wizard, but also a talented painter. This work was painted by him, in a most incredible way — mind painting!’
‘What is that?’ The bidders were more and more interested.
‘It is a special way of painting using his magic power instead of a brush or anything like that.’ The host seemed to not only have aroused the audience’s interest, but also his own. ‘That is to say, Mr Jadeking didn’t use any tools of any sort, but just his magic spells to paint! He could do it because… oh my goodness, did I forget to mention this — he’s not only a Wind wizard, but also a Water wizard! His painting is actually an artwork made by his Water magic! No one, no one else has ever done this kind of work before!’